I have been constructing jewelry for the past month. It was a hobby that my other had for many years. She was good at it. When she went home to be with The Lord I took most of her beads and finished items. That was several years ago. After being terminated from my job, I started cleaning up a storage room and sorting and throwing out and remembering and trying to remember. The beads were amongst the rubble.
Quality of material, specifically gems and semi-precious gems, is what I have noticed the most. Things have changed over the past 60 years. Growing up I remember that gems were well cut and well defined. If you had paste or other costume jewelry it was made to look like a well cut gem even if it was obviously not one.
Now we buy chips and nuggets and pass them off as gems. They have the same base as the gem. They may even have come from the same mine or pit as the well formed gem or bead, but these are the cast offs, the dregs. The funny part is that they are included in the jewelry just as though they were a fine diamond. It is not a bad thing and it does make for a very pretty piece if used properly.
What I have noticed is the parallel to Christianity. Sixty years ago, the mainline churches taught from the Bible and made no excuses for the Word of God. Over the years, many have adopted a chip, a sliver of Truth and built around it, a gospel that is nearly unrecognizable as coming from the Bible. If you know what you are looking for you will find it, but more often than not, the Truth is so shrouded in half-truths that it has become a different gospel, a gospel of men and not a Gospel of Christ.
We now get chips and nuggets of Truth without the burden of the Full Truth. This is not what was taught in the New Testament. We are taught to beware of those teaching a different gospel We are taught to seek after Truth not half-Truth, not bits of Truth, but to seek all of the Truth. You can be assured that you will not be judged righteous on the basis of half-Truth when the Full Truth of the Gospel lies in front of you. You will not hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." based upon the half-Truth that is spread as The Gospel of Christ.
The time is near, as it has always been. Just because the Rapture has not happened or Jesus Christ our Messiah has not returned does not mean that the time is not close. We are not guaranteed one more breath nor one more day and the day that each one of us meets God could be the next moment. The time to be ready is NOW.
Each of us must ask that question of ourselves. Are we ready at this moment to meet Christ and be welcomed into Heaven to dwell with Him forever? We must ask ourselves what, if anything, gives us the right to expect to be in HIS favor? If we answer with anything other than the BLOOD SACRIFICE ON THE CROSS OF CALVARY we have answered wrong.
Pray for guidance, search your heart and read your Bible. Let HIM answer those questions for you. Let HIM show you how to lay the crown at HIS feet.
Shalom. Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.