I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, to remain on at Ephesus so that you would instruct certain people not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths- 1st Timothy 1:3-4a

One definition of a myth is:

An unproved or false collective belief.

Most myths are relatively harmless, others not so much. It’s no big deal to believe in the loch ness monster. Believing that myth will likely have zero impact on your life (other than people thinking you’re a bit odd).

However. 

There are myths that do cause all sorts of problems. The most destructive myths are the myths we believe about God, ourselves and how we ought to relate to or interact with God. These myths keep us ensnared in wrong thinking, sinful patterns and relational dysfunction.  Because spiritual myths impact how we live out our faith we must take time to examine our behaviors and thinking on a regular basis. Routine self-examination prevents us from wandering from the truth (2nd Corinthians 13:5). 

Following are just a few of the most damaging spiritual myths out there:

God just wants me to be happy-

God has nothing against happiness. In fact, it could be argued by the sheer number of celebrations God mandated in the Old Testament that God loves celebrations and delights in human happiness. However, happiness is not God’s number one goal for our lives.  Mainly because God is far more concerned with our holiness (Ephesians 1:4, Ephesians 4:27, 1st Peter 1:14-16). God’s number one goal for us is to become as much like Jesus as humanly possible (Romans 8:28-29, Romans 12:2). Becoming like Jesus is no easy task for sinful people, sometimes it takes a little bit of adversity and hardship to make it happen. God allows hardship and difficulty because it reveals our selfishness and wrong thinking. When these things are revealed, we have an opportunity to let go of sinful behaviors and wrong thinking and put on new behaviors and attitudes (Colossians 3, Romans 12). If we let go of old behaviors routinely, over the course of time we will begin to look and act like Jesus. 

I should never pray for myself- 

This myth sounds super-spiritual, after all what could possibly be more spiritual than choosing to pray only for others?  It’s not spiritual. Believing this particular myth pretty much guarantees that you will never become a spiritually mature Christian. This is because there are some things you know about you that no one else could possibly know.  No one else could know if you covet, have a critical spirit or have a problem with lust, and all of those sins will trip us up and keep us from becoming mature in Christ.  Don’t get me wrong, it is critical we pray for one another (James 1:16). However, it is equally critical we ask God to help us to grow past the sins and wrong attitudes that are tripping us up and keeping us from authentic transformation.   

It’s a sin to be tempted-

I have met a surprising number of individuals who believe that being tempted to sin is the same as sinning because of what Jesus said about lusting in Matthew 5:28. The conclusion these folks draw from Jesus’ teaching is that if they have already committed adultery (or whatever) in their heart so they should just go ahead and do the deed. This is terrible theology that ignores a whole pile of Scripture that commands us to resist temptation rather than give into it (Ephesians 6:13, Hebrews 12:4, James 4:7). 

If I share about Jesus (or biblical truth) and people reject Him (or it) I’m doing something wrong- 

To be a Christian, we must accept some hard truths. We must believe we are sinners and that we have no way to save ourselves (Romans 3:23). We must also accept the fact that God expects us to repent of our sins and live life His way (Matthew 3:12, Acts 3:19, Acts 17:30). Some people find these truths to be too much and reject them. It is critical we understand people rejected Jesus when He shared hard truths (John 12:48, Luke 10:16) and servants are never above their master (John13:16). Therefore, it makes sense that sometimes people will reject truth no matter how well or compassionately it is presented. Our job is to present truth as honestly and winsomely as possible and to pray for those who reject truth. Sometimes they come back when they are ready to live those truths out.

What I do matters more than what I think- 

What we do does matter. I am in no way an advocate of cheap grace or easy believe-ism. However, all our wrong behavior starts with what and how we think (Matthew 15:18-19).  Therefore, if we change our behavior without getting our thinking in alignment with God’s word we will always go back to the wrong behavior (Proverbs 26:11). 

And finally,

What I do in church is my ministry-

 It is, but it also isn’t, our true ministry is what we do and how we behave when we aren’t in church. Ministry is how we treat people and live our lives. Our ministry is the level of kindness, generosity and integrity we show to the world.

Getting free of these spiritual myths empowers us to be free to be all Jesus wants us to be (John 8:32).