In ancient mythology, Ulysses needed to navigate the passageway between Italy and Sicily, the strait guarded by two deadly, intimidating threats — Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side lay rocky shoals — certain to rip the hull out of one’s ship. These rocks were guarded by a terrible, six-headed dragon determined to eat anyone alive who wandered within its reach. On the other side lay a vicious whirlpool from which a ship would never escape. You can sense the immense risk of danger to the ship in this picture.
In the Kingdom of Heaven, we need to navigate between two similar dangers. One is presumptuous faith, which expects to bring nothing to the altar, simply waiting on the Lord to provide. Folks holding this belief need to consider James’ admonition: “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26)
The other dangerous belief is performance-orientation which relies on man’s productive capability to earn points on a heavenly scorecard. People in this group should consider Jesus’ reply to Phillip: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father…the Father who dwells in Me does the works.” (John 14:10) The Son of God is telling Phillip that He waits to hear from His Father before taking action. In fact, He despises anyone displaying iniquity – a self-willed approach to spiritual activity.
How does one navigate this narrow passageway of Kingdom life, avoiding presumption and willfulness? Preliminary answers are found in John 5:19 (the Son of Man does nothing of His own accord), Matthew 7:21 (many will come in that day…), Matthew 13:8 (30, 60, 100x return), the Feeding the 5,000 parable, Matthew 5:3 (blessed are the poor in spirit) and other great passages. Start your own research and document your insights, for God has said: “You will find Me if you search for Me with your whole heart.”
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