walking on tippytoes

I had an interesting, but short conversation last night with one of the guys I worked with.  I didn't start the conversation but it's the first time I had to come face to face with what I see is the start of a rift between Mormons and Christians.

I was very careful about what I said and me, being me, told him the story of how a good Christian woman in Colorado had the courage and conviction of her faith to rebuke me for something in the most loving way.  I told the man that it wasn't my intent to insult him or his religion or to hurt his feeling after that and went into my remarks.

I told him that from my perspective, the reason Christians don't consider Mormons to be Christians is that, for us, the last page of Revelation is where Scripture ends.  I then just made it personal for me by telling him that as the way I see it, the Bible talks of false prophets and therein starts the divide.  His point though, and I agree, is that if we could just accept grace without it changing our lives, grace would be pretty cheap.  I  still don't believe you can earn your way into heaven, and being a good person without a saving faith in Jesus Christ isn't going to work for you either.  But if I hadn't changed, I fear that when I got to Heaven, Jesus would have had to say to me:  "I don't know you."  The thing about works, at least in my view, is that God changes us and gives us those opportunities to serve and that's where the "works" part comes in.

I will be forever grateful to that lady in Colorado who did more for helping me understand what being a good Christian meant.  I will probably never see her again this side of glory but I owe her a debt I could never hope to repay.

As for me and the guy I work with; I shared with him what I thought was appropriate and told him that when we hear the Truth, what we do with the Truth we become responsible for.  I told him that was a two way street because I've been exposed to what he believes is Truth.

One thing I did take away was something he said early in the short conversation that made me kind of chuckle.  He said that because the LDS church is called "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" somehow makes them Christians because the Savior's blessed name is used in the title.  Sadly, I hear the Savior's name quite frequently at work, but I don't think the people who say it are.  In fact, I'd say they're anything but.

I could say I'm slim, handsome, and rich.  But we all know the truth is anything but those three things.

The point I'm trying to make is simply saying it doesn't make it so.

Good food for thought on a muggy, cloudy, and damn hot Thursday.  Oh, anybody wanna come make jam and bottle apricots when I get off work at one a.m.?