I was reading in Oswald Chambers "My Utmost for His Highest," and I got a little premonition of how the world is going to try and make Christians out to be the fools in these last days.
Try this quote on for size:
"Paul was a holy person, but wherever he went Jesus Christ was always allowed to help Himself to his life. Many of us are interested only in our own goals, and Jesus cannot help Himself to our lives. But if we are totally surrendered to Him, we have no goals of our own to serve. Paul said that he knew how to be a "doormat" without resenting it, because the motivation of his life was devotion to Jesus. We tend to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which allow us more spiritual freedom than total surrender to Him would allow. Freedom was not Paul’s motive at all. In fact, he stated, "I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren . . ." ( Romans 9:3 ). Had Paul lost his ability to reason? Not at all! For someone who is in love, this is not an overstatement. And Paul was in love with Jesus Christ."
Can you imagine the smears that could emanate from that last statement, taken out of context? I spend little enough time worrying about how this world is going to wrap up, and all the "real" persecution we may ultimately be in for as Christians (don't kid yourselves, there is very minimal actual perscution going on in our America. Satan's favorite weapons at this point are busy-ness, materialism, pressure, and doctrinal tangents, side-tracks, and schisms in the church. What we have instead of persecution is a form of a spiritual Cold War that is going on in our western culture - can anyone say mutually assured destruction?), but on the few occassions on which I do think about it, it troubles me to think that the "intellectuals" of our day may try to portray Jesus and his disciples (and probably Paul) as being gay. Jesus never married, surrounded himself with men who could be portrayed to have virtually abandoned their wives and families, and John the Beloved was leaning against Him in the privacy of the Upper Room the day before He died. Like I said, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about how this world is going to wrap up, and the methods that the anti-Christ crowd will utilize to turn society against God (what a challenge in this spiritual climate), but when I do think about it, I am always troubled by how easily people swallow this junk.
What do you think?