Did They Think More Highly of Themselves?

 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according to as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. Romans 12:3

That leaders in a church could pass judgment on someone that did not follow their teachings to the letter, they must regard themselves more highly than they should. If you could weigh those teachings on a scale, which would be more important?

Wearing glasses/not practicing the teachings of not going to doctors/not celebrating holidays...on one side of the scale.

Salvation on the other side of it

What is more important? 

Ummm, let me think about that....I choose salvation as being more important.

Oh, not that the leaders did not preach salvation, but as I think about back to then, not once in any meeting (which was what we called them) did they ever give an altar call. 

How did they ever know if I had ever been saved? I don't know. No one ever asked me that question.

But here they wanted me to wear my glasses....it seems to me that they chose the other scale as being more important.

Even if they did not realize it.

To be sure, I did not know their hearts. I only knew mine. Well, Ok, Jeremiah says this about the heart:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9

So sure, I could not know their hearts or where they were at with the Lord. And sometimes didn't even know my own.

But what I did know was that I had tried hard to follow this group and yet never felt really a part of them and didn't get to the place where they were on the teachings of healing etc.

And that hurt, the day I got called out on it in a meeting. 

But you know, I hadn't meant to be there in the first place and here I was now going through the book of Romans to discover what I truly believed. 

I was getting closer to the truth.

And the bottom line was not whether I could get to where everyone else was (or said they were) but was knowing that despite that, God had shed his blood for me. Nothing about those other teachings could be more important than that.

Not that they aren't, don't get me wrong. Because the bible does teach healing etc. But it does not teach it as a requirement for heaven. 

And wearing glasses? Humph. That whole thing had been just plain wrong.

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Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to spend a few moments with me, Friends. May God bless the rest of your day!