Friday, March 21, 2025

Wrong

One of the key characteristics of a devoted believer in Christ is to admit when we are wrong. We actually did that when we first got saved, admitting that we were a sinner and needed a Savior. We also are directed to confess our sins and to receive forgiveness from the Lord. The Bible tells us in 1st Timothy chapter 2 that Jesus our Savior...
(4) ...desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
6 who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,
7 for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle...

You may have never heard of him, but you probably have used the website that he co-founded. His name is Larry Sanger.  He is co-founder of Wikipedia.

A Faithwire story quotes from one of his blog posts, in which he declared: "It is finally time for me to confess and explain, fully and publicly, that I am a Christian..."

The Faithwire article goes on to say:

Sanger told CBN News the skepticism he held for most of his life went back to his childhood and his unsure perspective on all religions. Despite that reticence, he did dabble in attempts to communicate with a Higher Power.

“I wasn’t necessarily praying to God, per se, but I had a sort of internal dialogue,” he said. “And sometimes, I even wrote it out …. with some supremely wise being, and, sometimes, I would even call that being ‘God,’ not that I believed that that was God, but in order to just sort of clarify my thought.”
The article also notes, including quotes from Sanger:

“I had a lot of roadblocks in the way to coming to believe that God exists and … that the Christian God exists, and being a Christian,” he said, noting he had to shed presuppositions and ideologies that conflicted with these worldviews, including notions about being driven by self-interest. “When I had children and when I got married, I’d reflected that, ‘Well, I would die for these people.’ So, of course, I put their interest ahead of mine.”
Faithwire says:
This challenged any sort of ideology about putting the self first. Then, he began to become “very disillusioned” by fellow unbelievers — especially the “mocking skeptics.”
He began "thinking deeper, reading the Bible," and ultimately, he began to look toward the truth of the Scriptures, stating: “There was a period of time in which I knew things were changing, but I can’t pin it down to a particular moment when I just decided I now believe that God exists,” adding, “There is a moment when I said, ‘OK, I have to admit that what I’m doing now is praying to God,’ and there also was a moment when I prayed something like the Sinner’s Prayer after, I guess, two months or so into reading the Bible.”

He is apparently learning more and more about walking with Jesus. The article reports: "Like many, Sanger had a litany of questions as he read Scripture and he relied on commentaries and biblical resources to help him navigate and learn. As he studied, he ultimately came to the conclusion that Scripture is true, validated, and provable." And, that is producing life transformation; Larry Sanger says, "The answers are out there...The Bible withstands scrutiny, which was a great surprise to me. I thought it couldn’t. I was wrong." He says, "I've changed a lot."

So, check out the timeline of transformation: disgruntled by the skeptics around him, he began to question his own views of God; ultimately, he was drawn to the Bible, and God spoke to Him. Larry Sanger surrendered his life, and he is now on a road to spiritual growth.  He is seeing the fruit of the presence of God in him - he is experiencing life change through Jesus.

That's a great indicator of how submissive we are to the Spirit - we can consider how we have seen and continue to see change in our lives, in our attitudes, our behavior, and our relationships. We can think about the degree to which we pursue the things of God.  And, as we maintain an attitude of who we are in light of who He is, we can recognize by the Spirit those areas that are not pleasing to Him.  Realizing that He loves us, we can confess our sins and experience true forgiveness - as we are willing to admit we don't have all the answers, that we are "wrong," we can see the presence of Jesus expressed through us. 

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