~ Hebrews 10:23 (NIV)
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My mom has macular degeneration, which is a degeneration of the central portion of the retina. It has diminished her vision greatly in the last few years, with no firm cure for the "dry" form of this disease. One of the interesting (no, I'm not morbid) quirks about how this disease manifests itself is that part of the image viewed can be distorted, or swerved, like this (called the Amsler Grid, which is used to screen for this disease):
The distortion she lives with would drive me to distraction! She said sometimes when she looks at people, their faces are rather contorted and squiggly -- maybe for her, it's comic relief, I don't know! :-)
The hope we profess as believers in Jesus Christ is our reliance on who He is -- the Son of the Living God -- and what He did for us when He died in our place for our sins so that we could be restored to right relationship with God. Swerving from this hope will lead us to all manner of deception.
Oprah, for example, has swerved from the Bible-based beliefs she was brought up with in the Baptist church she was raised in. When you listen to her, you realize that her Jesus is distorted from the One that God presents to us in Scriptures. His image gets very squiggly when you listen to the New Age influence that she has embraced. No longer is Jesus the only way, and our spiritual target is no longer the Creator God but some spiritual "light", or whatever you want to call "it". (I only highlight Oprah because she is visible. She is only one of many in this world who have not held unswervingly to the hope that is clearly defined in the Bible.)
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except by Me." (John 14:6) He also said that if we trust in His sacrifice for our sins, we will have forgiveness and right relationship with God throughout eternity (John 3:16). These are the straight lines on God's Amsler Grid. When we skew His gospel with half-truths and distorted theology, we get a very different image of Jesus, and our hope becomes rooted in pop theology rather than absolute truth.
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. ~ 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 (NIV)
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ~ Galatians 1:6-7 (NIV)
If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. ~ Deuteronomy 13:1-4 (NIV)
It is easy to see Jesus with a skewed image if we do not know and understand the truth God lays out in the Bible. I pray you can be challenged to dig into His Word and grasp with a tight grip the straight line of Jesus Christ. He is our hope, and our only salvation!
It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is "the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone." Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. ~ Paul, speaking to the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, in Acts 4:10-12
Love,
Joelene
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