For those who love the Church and want to see her prosper, it’s important to understand the conditions in which people live. To ignore those realities will remove the power of the Gospel to overcome those issues and suffering they create. The Gospel is meant to be lived in the real world where people are connected to a spiritual and emotional reality.

As the Lord was calling Isaiah to be a prophet, Isaiah shared a warning he received from the Lord, “The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does” (Isaiah 6:11). The word “like” has been translated “should not walk in the way.” This defines a person who walks in earthly wisdom without investigating God’s heart and His perspective on this life. We form our thinking from the content of what we believe to be true or have been led to believe. This investigation will challenge our existing relationship because at some point we will resist the assumptions of a like-minded crowd.

In His warning to Isaiah, the Lord continued, “Don’t call everything a conspiracy, as they do, and don’t live in dread of what frightens them” (vs. 12).  The word “like” is used again. There is a sad consequence for calling everything a conspiracy. It creates dread. I have noticed that when someone is overwhelmed by what is happening in the world their joy drains out of their life to be replaced with a looming dread. It’s not healthy to live that way.

Isaiah was given further instruction on how to preserve what is true and how to use that truth to interpret any conspiracy theory that contradicts God’s heart or His word, “Preserve the teaching of God; entrust His instructions to those who follow me” (vs. 16). To preserve God’s teaching means we must remain in the truth that originally set us free and not wander into dread-producing conclusions. Our foremost task is to remain close to God and His word and let His truth interpret when we are being asked to believe. 

There’s a draw for some believers to live their lives without deeper investigation of what is the truth of a matter and just hope for the best.  That choice creates unthinking sheep easily moved across the cultural and spiritual landscape without objection to who is doing the moving. We can’t chase all the theories afoot to prove them all right or wrong. If we become so absorbed in trying to correct all the conspiracies we hear, we will live a fragmented and confused life. 

The writer of Hebrews said it so clearly, “Let us strip off every weight that slows us down” (Hebrews 12:1). A life consumed with conspiratorial thinking must be stripped away to reveal the heart of God to not become trapped in the dread of unresolved conspiracies.  “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus the champion who initiates and perfects our faith” (vs. 2). Jesus has already won the conspiracy wars. He is the Way and the Truth in all things. It’s to Him our focus should be directed and what follows that focus will bring clarity about life and all its conspiracies, something not possible when dread is creating our interpretation.