As I was finishing up my previous Sharing, I ran across the following item I had cut out, about 10 years ago, and placed into one of my prayer room books I use for daily reading/meditation. It is entitled DON'T BLAME GOD by Leslie G. Thomas, and was apparently from something called the Sword & Staff (don't know if that's a book, newsletter, or what). Anyway, it tied in so well with both my previous and this Sharing, I thought I'd start off with it.

"Let us suppose that an evangelist comes to our community to conduct a religious meeting and proceeds as follows: At the first service he preaches that salvation is by faith only, but at the next one he contends that it is by faith exercised in obedience to the gospel, rather than by faith alone. At the third service he declares that either sprinkling, pouring or immersion is baptism, but at the fourth service he plainly shows that immersion is baptism. At the fifth service he tells the people they ought to baptize their babies, but at the sixth service he says that penitent believers are the only spiritual subjects of baptism. At the seventh service he preaches once in grace, always in grace; but at the eighth he tells people that it is possible for them to fall from grace, that some have fallen, and that the Bible tells how to keep from falling. At the ninth service he teaches that it is all right to have human creeds, but at the tenth he declares that we should take the Bible as our only guide in religion.

No thoughtful person would continue to listen to ONE preacher preach like that, but the majority of people are perfectly willing for TEN preachers to preach these conflicting ideas. They say that if one man should preach that way he would contradict himself and be inconsistent, but what kind of a God do they suppose we have if He endorses all these conflicting doctrines and has sent out these preachers to preach them?"

In the same prayer room book as DON'T BLAME GOD was a description of Jesus which I had cut out from somewhere about the same time. In part it goes as follows:

"He was born contrary to the laws of nature, was reared in obscurity and lived in poverty; only once did he ever cross the boundaries of his own small country; he had no wealth or influence, training or education and his parents knew nothing of the niceties of social tradition. In infancy, he startled a king, in boyhood, puzzled the wise; in manhood, ruled the course of nature. He healed the multitudes without medicine, and made no charges for his services. He never wrote a book, yet all the libraries of the world could not contain all the books that could be written about him. He never wrote a song, and yet has provided the themes for more songs than all earthly writers combined. He never founded a college, yet all the schools of earth have not had the students that sat at his feet. He never practiced medicine, yet he has healed more broken hearts that the world has ever taken note of. He never marshaled an army, never drafted a soldier, or fired a gun, yet no leader has ever had the volunteers, who, under his orders, made rebels stack arms and surrender to his command, never firing a shot."

These two items stand in stark contrast to one another for me. It is the reason I spend most of my time with Scripture in the four Gospels. What did Jesus say? What did he do? How did he respond to challenges? It is why I recommend beginning Bible readers to start there. Preferably in a Bible that has Jesus words in red type, so you can focus on them. It is why the central christian life programs question remains "what would Jesus do?

"You have much more power when you are working for the right thing than when you are working against the wrong thing. And of course if the right thing is established, the wrong thing will fade away of its own accord because all things that are not in harmony contain within themselves the seeds of their own destruction."   - Peace Pilgrim

"ANY FOOL CAN CRITICIZE, CONDEMN AND COMPLAIN AND MOST FOOLS DO . . . . .   . . . . . GOD HIMSELF DOES NOT PROPOSE TO JUDGE MAN UNTIL THE END OF HIS DAYS. WHY SHOULD I?"   (Author unknown)