Getting Rid of Tradition

I remember getting a brier stuck in my skin as a little kid.  When Mama would get it out it would hurt. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but as soon as it was removed it began to heal.

Removing a brier is not identical to removing man-made tradition from our beliefs and/or practices, but there are some parallels. I have experienced it many times myself, and I've also seen it take place in the lives of others. Long-held traditional beliefs are hard to let go of. I often tell people that tradition "dies hard." What I mean is that we are prone to holding on to something because it is what we were taught or what we have always been accustom to. It hurts to remove false views from our mind, but until we let them go the healing process will not begin. Until we learn that we've got to literally trash all thinking that does not align with Scripture, we will stand there in spiritual darkness.

I remember hearing some of the doctrines I now hold to dearly for the first time. I had been taught one way or believed this or that way without ever really studying out the issue. I then heard someone explain that the truth was really the opposite of (or at least different than) what I believed. It didn't sit well with me. My first action was to just label the "new teaching" or even the person at times. Forget about it, walk away, and continue in my blissful world of ignorance. "I'll just not think about it, and then I won't have to deal with it," I'd say to myself. The problem is this though: if you are truly filled with the set-apart Spirit of the Almighty, you won't be able to remain there in ignorance. Truth will grate on your soul every moment you are alive, and you will not be satisfied until you have taken the time to be a diligent student of Yahweh's Word, and search the Scriptures to find out if what you believe is truth or just some fairy tale that's been repeated long enough and loud enough so as to make others think that it's "gospel."

Friends (and I say this as much to myself as to anyone else), quit holding on to what you "think" is right, and start searching the Scriptures to find out what is really right. Get the brier out or it will cause infection, and in this case, the infection could be one that leads to eternal damnation.

Matthew Janzen