Day 2434 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Psalm 119:105 NIV
Can you imagine our faith without God's word? Can you wrap your mind around how hard this walk would be without His guidance and the lessons and power found in the Bible? Yet sadly that's exactly what some forms of worldly religion have chosen. They've chosen to make self the priority and to do so they have to push Scripture out of the way. I guess some are just more worried about making people feel comfortable and justified than helping them grow.
It honestly scares me when I hear and see some of the things that I have recently. People who call themselves Christians putting one another down and throwing stones. People who claim to follow Christ yet won't hold to the truths found in His teaching. People who deny the law and the realness of sin and the dangers it poses to every single one of us. I'm afraid that if we keep making comfort the priority then we're only going to keep wandering further from God's word and the changes that it encourages us to make.
I guess what people struggle with is that the Bible doesn't pull any punches. As the say, the truth hurts! And considering that His word is truth then there's bound to be some bruised egos and hurt feelings. Those kinds of things just don't fly in our world today. People are all about following their hearts and doing what makes them happy and comfortable. And well, the Bible just isn't there to cater to our desires or make us feel good about who we are in our broken state of humanity.
The fact is that we need God's word to open our eyes to the things we need to address. I fully understand that it's far easier to ignore things. It's easier to only focus on what leaves us feeling validated in our desire to remain where we are. It's easier to just keep giving into sin and refusing to acknowledge the issues that it's causing in our lives. But if we don't face the truth then we can't be changed by it. The Bible may hurt sometimes but pain is a great teacher! It helps us learn what we need to do to avoid it moving forward.
Look, the Bible is there to help us. And if that means slapping us upside the head with some cold hard facts then so be it. God's not willing to afford us the luxury of staying where we are and settling for what we've decided is okay or good enough. He's going to do whatever it takes to help us realize how far we've fallen and how badly we need His mercy and healing. Being confronted with the truth of our sins isn't comfortable but it is absolutely necessary because if we're not then we'll just keep on sinning.
Friends, that isn't good enough. Our faith cannot revolve around us anymore. It was never meant to anyway. We can't afford to accept the easier path of ignoring God's word in order to avoid the pain that comes with admitting our faults and acknowledging our flaws. We're not the ones on the throne here. We're the ones that need to surrender to God's truth and aim for His perfect example in Christ. Settling for anything less than that will only hinder growing in our faith.
His word is our map through the traps and pitfalls of a world that runs on wickedness. Scripture is the light that leads us through the darkness and helps us keep moving ahead in the right direction toward something better. We can't push that aside. We can't look for loopholes or take things out of context to fit what we want it all to mean and how we want it to work. Making this about us is never going to be okay. It's about laying ourselves down and admitting that we can't possibly find our way to His promises without His help and guidance.
Comments
Post a Comment