Checking Change

In common with many youngsters in the 50’s I earned pocket money by delivering newspapers for a local news agent. Mr. Cook was a kindly chapel going man, attending the Congregational chapel opposite his shop. One pay day I bought a small item from Mr. Cook and gave him a £1 note to pay for my purchase. Mr. Cook took the note, went to the till and returned with my change which he rapidly counted out into my outstretched hand. I was about to pocket my change when Mr. Cook said sternly “Have you checked your change”? “But - you just counted it” I blustered. Fixing his stern gaze on me he said “Check it boy.”  I checked, and sheepishly found I was a coin short (2 shilling). Holding out the coin he had concealed in his hand he said “Always check your change, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye.”

          How easily we are deceived into thinking everything is just fine, when the reality is the very opposite. PROV 14:12: 16:25 warns us that ‘There is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way of death.’  Jesus told of the two roads one a narrow way, the other a broad road that leads to destruction, the narrow road though hard to find leads to eternal life MATT 7:13,14.

          What looks right is not necessarily right, it is all too easy to be deceived, so it is vital we make the right choice. The fact that many are traveling the broad road does not make it right, for us, nor indeed for them, when the end is destruction.

          What we must do then is check for ourselves. The Athenian philosophers checked out Paul's preaching concerning the resurrection of Jesus for themselves by inviting Paul to address them in the Areopagus, and some believed him, becoming followers of Christ ACTS 17:16-34.

          There are many who will say this way or that way is the right way, scripture exhorts us not to believe everything we hear as being from God until we have tested it 1JOHN 4:1.          Although Jesus said few find the narrow road that leads to life, He also said if you seek you will find MATT 7:8. Check it out for yourself.