Heresy

"The difference between heresy and prophecy is often one of sequence. Heresy often turns out to have been prophecy—when properly aged."

Hubert H. Humphrey

Please be sure that I'm not promoting Godless directions with this quote. There have been many people who have turned God's people away with heresy and have led people down the wrong path, away from the Gospel, and into their own added teachings...entire religions have come from this often times. I'm not promoting that here.

The "heresy" here that I'm promoting isn't a deterrence from the Word of God but from the norms of religious people. Often times throughout history people stood up for what was right in God's eyes against the religious norms and were labeled heretics. This is what I'm referring to. Holding closer to the Word of God regardless of what the norms of the day are and regardless of how you are received. My favorite example of this is Martin Luther with the Protestant Reformation. Excommunicated, but completely changed the face of Christianity.

But we don't even need to search that deep to find other examples, just go straight to the Gospels: Jesus himself. Jesus' disciples who were murdered by the religious powers for their "false" beliefs: Andrew, James, Matthew, Bartholomew, Philip, Thomas, Simon, James.

We need this determination in our faith to live what we believe. To portray God the way we believe He would like to be portrayed, regardless of how we are received. I highly doubt that we will receive such extreme receptions from the religious people of our day the way the disciples were received by their community. So why are we so afraid to step out? We need to live what we believe about God and His Word, instead of just abiding by social norms that we don't agree with.