But There are Friendlies in the Vicinity……………… An Honest Assessment of A Good Purpose Gone Bad!!!

I write this post reluctantly but with a clear conscience. I also write this post to draw a line in the sand and to clearly define the purpose of why I originally started blogging and what the Lord has done to my heart since the very first post back on the Black and Reformed that I shut down a few months ago. So I want to be honest. I originally started blogging due to my frustration with the Health and Wealth movement. I was utterly abused by Legalism, Word of Faith teaching, and a slew of false doctrine. I used to spend all of my time as a lion looking to pounce on the first lonely sheep that disagreed with me. I would love to get into debates at barbershops, with family, and love to tell my wife how much I disagreed with Jakes, Olsteen, Meyers, Price, Dollar and their affiliates. I enjoyed destroying their doctrinal positions and anyone who would side with them.  Okay I really, really enjoyed it. I would take my arguments to church and debate with anyone who would defend even an ounce of this doctrine. I would even argue with myself if I had to. I just wanted to expose false teaching regardless of the bridges I knocked down, the relationships I sabotaged, and the feelings I hurt along the way. I left a trail of destruction wherever I would go. The crazy part is, I justified all of this by saying “I am standing for truth”.

I would hear all of the time, from those closest to me, that I was being to harsh, maybe I should be more gentle, but I put them in the same bucket I did the expected wolves. I called them “wolf sympathizers” and quickly turned on them. I just wanted to kill everyone in the path, regardless of our relationship. If you were caught on the same side as the foe, you were considered a foe. This continued on until I practically burned every bridge in sight. I then turned to the Internet, where I found others just like me. I later found blogs that thought the way I thought and they were even more tenacious than I was at exposing these wolves. That is when I figured out how to start my own blog. My motive was to “stand for truth at all costs”. Encompassed in that all cost were those who were theologically untrained who would come and defend these “false teachers”.

So after being ignored by my wife, church family (some anyway), friends who belonged to these types of churches, and even old church members,  I finally had a voice on the web. People started to come and I sent my blog out to everyone on my email list. I loved every minute of it. I finally found people who agreed with me. I would have a field day attempting to destroy every doctrinal position that, those I considered, false teachers had. If I caught someone affiliating with them, they were just as guilty. If Jakes spoke at your engagement, you were just as guilty as Jakes. If Rick Warren was at a conference that someone I respected was at, I considered them just as guilty. Then…….

Something weird happened. As I looked back over all of the dead bodies, and the body count report came back, I realized that there were friendlies in the count. Not just a couple, but just as many friendlies as there were enemies. I started to look at the bridges I burned, the relationships that I sacrificed in the name of truth, and the hearts I broke standing for “God’s truth” and my heart became heavy. I read Respectable Sins and things such as: patience, gentleness, and forgiveness were areas I was seriously lacking in.  I thought of all of the people that were in the crowd when I sent the mortar on an enemy camp! The babies (young in the faith) the elderly (those who were helpless), and even friendlies (those who agreed with me, but were not ready to split but would rather be patient seeking prayer over division). So I tried to cover it up by starting a new blog, but the Lord would not let me rest. Repentance was and is necessary for such sins.

So I want to say to anyone offended again, that I am sorry if I included you in anything that did not bring God glory. Father, if I have written anything with “selfish motives”, or vain conceit, I repent and I pray that you would fix my mess. We have way too many friendlies in the crowd to send atomic bombs or mortars into enemy territory. My heart and goal now is to send special agents in (the Truth) to rescue our friends from enemy territory. Every innocent bystander is important and I refuse to shoot in the crowd again. That means that some blogs that I would visit quite frequently I will not visit again. I thought that I could go on there and infuse truth, but I would find myself falling back into sarcasm and condescending remarks. I enjoyed being a “Heresy Hunter” because it made me feel better about myself, by expressing my disdain for them (I guess).  As long as I got one enemy I didn’t mind taking out 5 allies!

So going forward I pray that this blog will proclaim the Glory of Christ above anything else. I pray that as you read this blog, your heart is warmed and you want to proclaim the excellencies of Christ even more. Finally I hope to engage in critical (but ultimately loving) dialogue with those who disagree. Thanks for those who visit here and if you are what I was then I pray that God will give you the same conviction. Lets proclaim the truth of God in love.

God Bless,

Your Not So Humble Brother,

Lionel Woods