“A rose by another name is still a rose.” William Shakespeare put these words in the mouth of Juliet in ‘Romeo and Juliet’: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Juliet is talking about her love. Juliet says that you cannot change the beautiful nature of something by simply renaming it. A rose is still as beautiful even if you call it a turnip or a skunk.
These days there are myriad ways that some, even in our churches, are trying to convince us that a rose is something other than a rose. Over the past few years we have heard people telling us that the Bible is not the inerrant Word of God (TSA Doc 1). From this deception they proceed to tell us all kinds of things that should be easily seen as untrue. They are selfish and tell us that we have to look out for ourselves before serving God through others. They tell us that even though the Bible says certain selfish behaviours can be changed, the Bible doesn’t really mean what it says: they say that you can’t change your nature so don’t even bother trying. They tell us that we are born certain ways and we’ll never be able to change. This is sad. We know it’s not true.
We have all seen people change. We have all heard testimonies of people whose lives God has changed from the inside out. Many of us have had our own lives changed as we turned them over to God but the Diotrephes of today say that a rose is not a rose and so not only can we not change to be free of behaviours which enslave us but also we must embrace and even build our identity around them: ‘why call a sin, a sin?’ They ask. ‘You can’t be free of sin’, they say. ‘Enjoy your selfish actions’, they say. ‘Look out for number one’, they say. ‘Don’t worry about what God and the Bible say about loving God, your neighbour, and being perfect’, they say, ‘we all sin all the time’, they say, ‘just look after yourself’, they say, ‘and everything else will be okay’, they say.
This selfishness is sad because by putting oneself before God and others, many people are denying the power of Christ to change us. It is sad because they are ignoring what is plain to see: if we seek the Lord, we will find Him. And as we find Him, we will be transformed into His likeness no longer doing evil but instead doing good. We can all be changed; we can all be sanctified; we can all be holy. This is the gospel truth. John’s epistles record that we can be free from sin; we should not be deceived: it is as obvious as the fact that ‘sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar;’ ‘if it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck;’ ‘a rose by another name is still a rose;’ and, 3 John 11, ‘…anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.’ And we can all see God and we can all have our lives transformed so that He can do what is good even through us. Therefore, ‘Dear friend[s], do not imitate what is evil but what is good.’
How has God’s goodness been seen in our lives this week?
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