A sad but true story happened to a friend’s family: A lady attended a spiritual event and joined the group. She was taught to “be herself” for finding her happiness. Later she was asked for money contribution to the group. However, her husband found out her continuous spending on this purpose so he didn’t allow her to do it anymore. For some reason, she committed a suicide.
It is one of many reasons people may regard religious people or spiritual groups as maniac or lack of rationality.
The Bible says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1, ESV)
The false thoughts exist not only in various religions or philosophies, but also in the daily news, books, or gossip from coworkers, etc. Avoiding to have contact with these false thoughts is not an effective way of finding security; learning the truth to filter out the lies is a better solution.
There is a Creator God of this universe knows everything and He is good to always telling the truth. The truth you want to learn is recorded in the Bible, a collection of writings, in which the earliest ones were written nearly 3500 years ago without one word being changed. (*see note)
Do you want to find the wisdom of telling good from evil? Jesus Christ is the way and the truth. Coming to learn from Him is the beginning of wisdom.
So I pray: Lord God, please give us a heart of fearing the true God so that we can learn from Your wisdom. Please teach us when we open the Bible to seek Your guidance and live with peace and discernment in the truth-distorting, levity-mixing, paradox-permeating society.