Reflection: Many will say “I am he”

How ironic. Jesus claims to be God and proves it … and the world doesn’t wanna know. Along come smooth-talkers claiming to be the Messiah, or gurus, or claiming to be God himself … and people believe! 

There’s a time for epiphanies and a time for warning. In Jesus’ final hours, with his little posse of fearful followers he knew they needed to hear a warning.

Don’t let bad guys lead you astray … because there will be lots of them. And they’ll be convincing, with their ‘I am’s’. 

Bad guys in the movies look like bad guys. But Paul warns, in Romans 16, that’s likely not the case. Ambitious. (We like that quality.) Clever with rhetoric. (We admire that.) Persuasive. (Sure, we want bigger churches.) Bless-ers.* (Who doesn’t like to be treated with kindness?)  

Warning! Winsome leaders aren’t necessarily who they say they are.  

Heresy does not bludgeon us into belief. We are seduced.** 

Prayer:

With your rich display of deity, how can we need warnings to stay tenacious in our trust? Yet we do, naïve and fickle that we are. Fortify us by your Spirit … and those around the world who are being conned. Deliver us from the Evil one, Lord, because the Kingdom, the power and the glory are not his, but YOURS.

 Notes:

*Romans 16:18 – flattery or ‘blessing’

**Parker T. Williamson,  Standing Firm: Reclaiming the Chastain Faith in Times of Controversy