This is NOT of God: Not What I Did and Not What Greek Letter Organizations Do (Pt 1)

What I’m about to share is not going to be pretty. But here goes…

“Christmas is the season we celebrate the Word becoming flesh. I wanted to gift you with something in gratitude for the multitude of ways you have gifted me. And I can think of nothing more appropriate than the Word. You didn’t just speak words to me [friend] but you became a word that rivaled the many pains, doubts, fears, and feelings of unworthiness that I carried within me. In the place I had been rejected, you accepted me - the parts that were strong and weak and still needed change. Where I felt unheard, undervalued, and unwanted, you invited my presence and voice giving thought to and space for them both. God knew I needed more than just words; He knew I needed a new experience so that I could believe what He’d already spoken. So He sent you. Thank you for showing up each day, just you being you.”

These words are ugly. But at one point, I thought they were beautiful. And what makes them so ugly, though they be so beautifully written, is my misplacement of glory. I had to repent and rewrite my heart so that I no longer compared a man to my God and made sure that I gave due credit to the One who made our friendship effectual. I had to acknowledge that I thought God and what He had already declared about me was insufficient until I experienced it through another man. Had it not been for God’s Word, I would have never seen anything wrong with mine.

Those words are a snippet of a note I wrote some years ago to a friend, who I believe was sent and was a gift from God to me. But it was God who used his presence, encouragement, consistency, kindness, and many more things that are a story for another day, to bring beauty from a place of ash. God uses people in this way. But He never intends for us to misconstrue the creation with the Creator. And this is what I had idolatrously done.

I know I’m a writer and love my embellished language, but what the mess was I thinking. It still pains me to read what I wrote. My words were shameful, sinful, and detestable – because that’s what God’s Word calls them. He used Isaiah 46, in particular, to help me see just how grievous my offense had been. I won’t recount the entire chapter (just 13 verses), but I will highlight these: “To whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?.... I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me” (vv. 5, 9b).

Some of you were probably gasping as you read or listened to my words. But perhaps there were a few, like me, who kept going without pause because we couldn’t detect just how sinful they were. This is what deception is and does. It blinds us from seeing rightly and confirms our ignorance in falsehood. Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us that our hearts are above all else deceitful; yet somehow, we convince ourselves of the goodness of its desires, intents, and perspectives.

I love my friend. I believe my heart will never not love him. But I had to continuously wrestle with my wants and motives to ensure my love for him was pure. Obviously, it wasn’t always. But I would go back to this chapter to measure my actions and to this verse, specifically, in repentance anytime I overstepped a boundary God had given me in which to operate in friendship with him: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6)? The question I had to ask myself is, “Is what I call love what God calls evil?” I remember sharing with God that I only wanted to be light to him. And I realized I couldn’t do that if I participated in deeds of darkness with him.

Ephesians 5:8-13 states, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible – and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.”

In Romans 1:25, Paul tells us that men would exchange the truth for a lie and worship and serve the created thing rather than the Creator. Even if I never bowed down and kissed this man’s feet, if I chose to disobey whatever God had commanded me to obey concerning him, I would have made him my idol by choosing fellowship with him over right standing with God. There was a season where connection with one another was intentioned by God, but my fear didn’t want my feet to stay. So, though my M.O. was to run, the coaxing of God to remain was to be obeyed. And when my heart began to tempt me to sin and I was called away, I needed to obey that too.

Sometimes, God appoints you to people and places for a season. And sometimes, He never intends for you to involve yourself at all. How do you know the difference? How do you know when it’s a time to stay and when it’s a time to go? As born-again believers in Jesus Christ, we’ve been given a compass, The Holy Spirit. He convicts, corrects, leads, and strengthens us to make God-glorifying choices. Yet He, and not our flesh, must be fed to be the conscious of our souls because it’s possible to silence His voice. We sharpen the voice of God in our lives when we delve into His Word, ask for wisdom in prayer, and seek guidance from counsel imbedded in the Truth.

If it were up to me, there’d be no separation between me and my friend. But it’s not up to me; it’s up to God. After refusing and not seeking wisdom, I kept going and suffered harm more times than I can count in my life (Proverbs 22:3-5). I didn’t want to do that anymore. So, no matter my tears or angst, I made a point to strive to live in the light. The light of God’s Word. In the light where trusted mentors and sisters could see me and hold me accountable to being the woman God called me to be. 

I’m at yet another crossroad to obey or disobey. Through my own sinful flesh and deeds, God has dealt with me and taught me in the very areas He would appoint me to go and speak. And though my stuff, may not look like your stuff, the essence is the same stuff. Sometime this summer, after the Lord had already been leading me to write about His children in the womb, He began laying on my heart to speak about Greek letter organizations. I was like, “Lord… you know I already got hard topics, why this?” But it became evident with the information I had come across that it would be sin for me not to share it. And truthfully, it would unloving. Because what kind of love watches a person do something to their detriment and says nothing?

TRUST ME when I say I get it – if there is rustling of feathers and hairs and a fury of defense on your tongue. I DID NOT. REPEAT. I DID NOT want to hear anything that went against what my heart held affectionally. I didn’t want to give up the things and people I held dear. But I have been wounded far and loved incomparably enough to know that no thing and no person is worth compromising my relationship with and fidelity to God. I have loss, and I have given, and yet I have still had everything because I had Him.

So, though the words I am to share are undoubtedly unwelcomed, I’m willing to risk friendship and affinity with you. Not because I want to but because God, truth, and love demand that I do. In Part 2, I will uncover what has been revealed to me about Greek letter organizations and why God doesn’t want His children associated with them.

Before you tune in for that, I would encourage a few things:

• Pray and ask God to soften and open the eyes of your heart to the truth of His Word

• In prayer, ask God to reveal if Greek letter organizations are of Him or not

• Ask God to lead you to passages in His Word about worship and obedience to Him alone (you can check out your Bible index and concordance)

Brothers and sisters, we have an enemy, and it is not one another. Jude cautions us to “build [ourselves] up in [our] most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. [To] keep [ourselves] in God’s love as [we] wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring [us] to eternal life. [To be] merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; [and] to others show mercy, mixed with fear – hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (v. 20-23). At the end of day, I love you. Whether I’ve never met you and most certainly if I have. I see an enemy at work to deceive us all, to corrupt our faith and worship, and make us confident in his script rather than God’s. So, in mercy towards you and in fear of God, whom I must give account to, I will speak.