Have you ever run laps? This is a common way to exercise in a limited area, but it doesn’t lend itself to getting to a destination. In a larger sense, does it feel as if you are running laps in life, dealing with the same issues in the same way and going around in circles, making no progress? Is this a source of frustration and discouragement? There is another way to approach this. In the world of mathematics some problems are solved by successive approximations.

Do you recall my statements that many would come in my name that I didn’t send? And that ye shall know them by their fruits? Are you a victim of spiritual abuse, or do you know people who are? Do they (or you) attribute this to me or to the people who did this acting in my name? This is an important difference, for many have rejected me for crimes I did not commit, and it is true that there are those because of whom the way of truth is evil spoken of. Can you discern the difference between those whom I sent and those I did not even though both go by my name and claim my authority?

Do you have any religious affectations? These are mannerisms that you may acquire to display your Christian identity. Does this seem innocent enough and even desirable? Yet when you consider the things that I criticized in relation to all the things that I could have criticized, religious affectations rank very highly. Consider my remarks to the Pharisees about the things they did for pretense. I made a strong distinction between things done for outward appearance to be seen of men and things done in secret to please your Father in heaven. This distinction is just as valid today.

Do you think of your salvation as a credential? Once you are saved, do you expect everyone, and particularly believers, to take you seriously? In like manner do you consider yourself obligated to take seriously all of your fellow believers, no matter what they say? Do you find any support for this in the Bible? I accept all who call on my name, but that does not qualify them as teachers. You are called to accept your fellow believers but only to follow me. You are not to judge others on the basis of their positions, but you don’t have to accept them as revealed truth either.