Two Errors

I’ve written before that there seems to be two errors that those considering Christianity tend to make.

The first is to believe that if one becomes a follower of Jesus, all of life will become joy and bliss and free from trial and disease.

The second error is that if one becomes a follower of Jesus, all of life will become drudgery and boredom.

J.I. Packer says, “It must be said that of these two extremes of error, the first is the worse, just to the extent that false hopes are a greater evil than false fears. The second error will, in the mercy of God, lead only to the pleasant surprise of finding that Christians have joy as well as sorrow. But the first, which pictures a normal Christian life as trouble-free, is bound to lead to bitter disillusionment sooner or later.”

I’ve seen this countless times. And in every case that I can remember, is that while it’s the person’s beliefs about God that have been wrong, when proven wrong they reject God Himself instead of adjusting their wrong beliefs.

For example, ‘If I’m a Christian, God will protect me from bad things happening to me.’ This is a very common false belief. Then when the person’s parent dies or they fail a test, or lose a competition, they conclude that God must not be real. Sad but true.