1 Timothy 4:1-5
"Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer."
In Paul's exhortations to Timothy, he often mentioned the arguments about truth. If you read Paul's accusation carefully, such arguments are not necessarily bad, but once they teach the minor matters as absolute truth, they become laws putting people in bondage. For example, you wake up early in the morning, pick up the bible and begin to read and pray and you feel good when it's done, so you follow this practice every day, feeling energized and full of vitality. Therefore you start telling people around you that they must get up early to read the bible, they have such wonderful effects! So some people follow you to get up early for morning devotions, then find out singing hymns and praising God before reading the bible are very helpful in their scripture reading. So you write down the steps, print and distribute them to your relatives and friends, encourage them to follow suit, in this process, the personal renewal experiences eventually become a formality.
Of course there is nothing wrong about formality itself, its danger is once people follow it for a while; they will often forget the true meaning behind the formality. Just like the church has Holy Communion every month, but why do it? Not too many people know and this is the outcome when belief turns into formality. The more terrifying thing is, over time, we'll legalize formality, beginning to use formality to judge other people. "That person doesn't get up early for morning devotion, certainly not a spiritual person!" In fact some people are late risers by nature that are better off with "night devotion", but the morning devotion people cannot accept it, they insist on changing people's habits to copy theirs. For those who fail to follow the regimen, they judge and criticize, even blaming people who are different as heretics, what a sorrowful thing!
This is the outcome of legalizing beliefs, and the church falls easily in this trap, putting down each other, even attacking each other's' parties and affiliations. We ask the spirit of the Lord to help us to no longer using our formalities as absolute standards, rather supporting and accepting each other with a generous heart.
Pray with Pastor Tong
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