If you think what I am saying is true, you may likely be among the new generation of believers who understand my message... You may likely be among those who either don’t practice or don’t like Apostasy too.
Recently, I got tired of two people around me who seem to boast too much about who they are in God and forget about the work of grace (Ephesians 2:8)… I later found out that what they are doing is called Apostasy.
Apostasy means the falling away from the faith; the revolt against the truth of God’s word by a believer. It can also be described as a group or church organization that has fallen away from the truths of Christianity as revealed in the Bible.
I must confess that the first time I heard about this word was when I went through workers in training in my new Church last year. Not that I have not heard or seen what it means before then though, it made me to ponder so hard about how it has eaten so deep into two areas of our daily lives these days (without we suspecting it) and I want to share two experiences with you.
1. Relationship: Recently I bluntly told a female friend never to tell me again that she is better than the other girls. She has told me this too often and I got tired of it because I know she is not different from other girls; if I could compare at all, I would say she is worse than every other female ministers I’ve been friends with. Sometimes, I tell her she has never been with a good girl friend, that’s why she doesn’t know she’s being a bad girl. Other times I use Mathew 7: 3 for her, “Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye?”
2. Religion is an aspect of life every one of us must be involved in one way or the other. Sometime ago a man whom I respect in the Christian faith met me and gave me some advice about how to go about a few challenges I have with some people in my profession. In summary I can describe his advice like this: “People don’t want to hear the truth, so give them the lie that they deserve; that is what has been helping me.” He said that as goodwill to me and I appreciate it, though I wonder why he should say that as a “man of God”. I wish he knew how people who are not as religious as him view him, even before he spoke with me… He was a typical example of some of what the book of Proverbs (6: 16) describes as what God hates, “… A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that kill innocent people, a mind that thinks up wicked plans, feet that hurry off to do evil, a witness who tells one lie after another, and someone who stirs up trouble among friends.”
In Luke 18: 9-14, Jesus explained Apostasy when he told us about people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else. "Once there were two men who went up to the Temple to pray: one was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed, 'I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week, and I give you one tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his breast and said, 'God, have pity on me, a sinner!' I tell you," said Jesus, "the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home. For those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great."
Friend I did not write this article to condemn those who practice Apostasy, rather I wrote it after much pondering on the word and realized that many people who do it don’t even know they are doing it: if what you get from this message is to pray please do, because you may never know it yourself when actually you are falling away from the truth of God’s word.
Shalom.
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