Acts 20:28-32
The secret is out, I work for the government. Ok, I'm no spy. I in fact work a somewhat boring workaday job that I have been at for about 35 years now. It's honest work and my goal, our goal, is to give the best possible care to our patients. We do an excellent job if I do say so. Early on in my tenure though, some typical government issues reared its ugly head. Issues like abuse of sick time and doing the best job possible as opposed to just doing the minimum. Practical matters for sure but ones that highlight today's passage for me.
Work for the government, as with any place, requires that you do the best you can, not for anyone except for yourself. If others are abusing sick time, I didn't because it is not who I am. It is not how I operate. If others do the bare minimum, that isn't me either. I did the best I could for my own sake because I felt it was what God wanted me to do, it cooperated with my internal moral compass and it was best for the patients (and taxpayers) whom I am serving. Simply put, you have to be true to yourself and your conscience.
In today's passage, Jesus speaks about 'wolves among us' and some who 'distort the truth'. It seems pretty clear to me how this has happened time and time again within the Roman church and continues today. I should add, and in many other churches as well. Some seem worse than others. But Jesus also speaks a 'message of grace' that is able to build you up.
When the lunacy and heresy of what is being done to so many religions today, it is imperative that we focus on the Spirit of God and our conscience. We need to live holy lives and do what is right because it is what God wants us to do, it is what we have to do to be true to our selves and who we are. This may very well fly in the face of what organized religion says because in many instances those religions are the wolves among us and the distorters of the truth. This type of 'conscientious objector' may be the true silent majority.
Live according to the precepts Jesus gave us and the Spirit guides us in. That is often not what the church is saying, it may not be what a lot of people are doing. Let your (informed) conscience be your guide.
Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified.
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