If You Really Want It, It's Going to Cost, Part 2

Besides sacrificial prayer and fasting and that sort of thing, the main way Christians need to die to self these days is to rethink some of their most fondly held beliefs.

In a sense that's what I've been doing for some years now, although I must admit that most of what I've had to change my mind about isn't anything I've held to with any particular fondness or zeal. Giving it up has been mostly a matter of learning and learning and learning rather than fighting my own prejudices. I salute anyone who takes up the fight against his/her own prejudices; that takes real courage and humility and dedication to the pursuit of truth.

So if you've been a staunch advocate of the Westcott and Hort-based modern Bible versions and are willing to reconsider the foundations of your advocacy, I praise the Lord for your willingness and wish you God speed. It would have to cost a great deal of personal pride at least, and possibly even friendships, to give up a strong attachment to your accumulated knowledge, and even to the seminary or the teachers you've been trusting about this.

If you've been a diehard supporter of the interpretation that the woman's head covering is her hair, or feminine dress, or something else, I applaud your willingness to reconsider that belief. I can imagine how much it would cost a woman who has spent her life cultivating her long hair in the sincere belief that it meets the Biblical requirement, to have to think she might have been wrong all that time.

I pray the Lord would wake up many, lead us to repentance and humble us deeply over our wrong allegiances, so that His church might yet rise up in these last days in the power we've been so desperately without for so long now, in the purity of a spotless garment, in a return to our First Love, in a deeper knowledge of God. Strengthen Your people in faith and truth and wisdom and courage in these last hours, Lord.