“I Believe I’m Right” – Grant Corriveau
“It can’t be about having ‘right’ beliefs,” my pastor said.
The day our pastor’s mother died our church followed some very strict beliefs. Some would call it ultra-legalism. Others would have identified it as a cult. But then the church doctrines changed radically and he (all of us) were faced with the question, “What about those who apparently died “in error?”
“It can’t be about having ‘right’ beliefs.”
Suddenly we were confronted with the understanding that our faith in God, our eternal life, and all the most important issues of eternity, could NOT possibly be tied to our often flawed and always incomplete beliefs.
Some things must be eternal, and the only thing that has proven consistent across time is the doctrine of love.
Sadly, so many people – of all religions – can be the last ones to figure this out. Ask me how I know. It’s one thing to believe we know something and hold onto those beliefs with the understanding that knowing anything as a human is fraught with limitations and might one day need to change and grow. It’s another thing completely to KNOW with absolute certainty that everything we believe is The Ultimate Truth and everyone else MUST believe as we do – or else.
Jesus – at least the one I see in Scripture – was not ‘that guy.’ He epitomized God’s self-sacrificial, other-protecting/helping love. HE still does and I hope more and more people who claim to follow him will get this.