Authentic Replicas

I received another of those emails today–you know where they offer genuine replicas of Rolex watches. I’m encouraged to buy one so that I can have a watch like this celebrity, or that celebrity. It reminded me of something written by the Late Ron Dunn when an “authentic replica” was offered to him. He made the following observation:

‘”An Authentic Replica.” I thought about that. How could it be authentic and a replica at the same time. Actually, what they were saying was, “This is a Genuine Phony.” There’s a big market today for “authentic replicas.”’

I hope you realize there is a big market in the Church for them also. There always has been. Judas was one of the extreme cases. But through the years the Church has been plagued by these genuine phonies. They look like real Christians, but they are just replicas of the real thing.

It’s like counterfeit money—hard to spot and easy to spend. When a Treasury agent was asked how they were trained to spot phony money. He didn’t say that they studied examples of counterfeit money and the techniques of known forgers, and so on. He said, “We learn to spot the phony by studying the real thing. We get to know the real thing so thoroughly that it’s easy to spot the counterfeit.”

What a message that to the entire body of Christ. The reason we have such a hard time spotting the phony (haven’t we all been fooled by a counterfeit) is that we are not thoroughly acquainted with the real thing.”’

You and I need to spend quality time with Christ in private devotions. That is the only way we can really know the “real thing.” We need to read His Word and see Him in The Word as we read it. We need to pray in His name realizing that those personal prayers make us more like Him as we follow His example.