It's 1990, around Christmas. The younger of my two daughters is 4-years old. She is adorable, she is beautiful and she is so very precocious. The holidays are usually slow so this was an opportunity to take the girls out on a movie night. We attend the original release of Home Alone. I can honestly say that movie made me belly laugh, but even funnier is when we returned home. The four-year old runs into the house shouting to find her grandmother. When she finds her we hear this, "Have you seen that movie, Home All By You Self"?
I don't think she was very much older when one afternoon she got in trouble for pestering her big sister. I don't remember the details now, but I do remember telling her, "NO! You will not treat your siter like that!". But she wouldn't stop... stubborn and precocious. So in my stern 'Daddy' voice I said, "What part of 'NO' don't you understand?". She looks up into my face and pensively answers, "The O". I had to literally turn and walk away my body shaking with laughter.
On yet another occasion this child is being rocked to sleep... and no, we didn't use the big rock. Her grandmother looks down at her and says, "You're so sweet, I think I will call you Angel". Without missing a beat my daughter looks up at her grandmother and says, "If I'm so sweet why don't you call me Jesus?".
The stories I can tell about my daughters' early life are filled with humorous anecdotes. But that last one has become a message that God's people need to hear.
The real Messiah, Jesus Christ warned his disciples in Matthew 24 that many would come saying that He is the Christ, and that they would deceive many. John the disciple Jesus loved, warned of many false Christs, and that the spirit of antichrist was already working in his day.
Is that not true today, twenty centuries later?
This article serves as a reminder that there are many who come in the Name of Jesus Christ. They speak of Jesus as being the Son of God. They talk a good game, but in reality they want the spotlight on themselves; and you dare not stand between them and that spotlight. Or, as one person put it to me many years ago, "Don't steal pastor's thunder!".
These delusional megalomaniacs need that spotlight. They need the gimmicks and the trickery. They put on a good show with lights, loud music, smoke and theatre. They need to sell that merch. They want your money. Demanding fierce unwavering loyalty, they want you to bow to them acknowledging how especially anointed they are.
Take heed of yourselves! Don't be tempted to follow, revere or take after their ways and doings. If you are offered a seat at the private table, an invitation to the green room, are told to keep secrets, or are to be seated on the stage as a VIP, then don't be surprised when that false messiah whispers to your spirit, "WHY DON'T YOU CALL ME JESUS!"