Day 2699 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV

We've been discussing this recent study that has shown that over half of all self-proclaimed Evangelicals no longer believe that the Bible is actually the Word of God. Yep, still harping on it because like it or not, this is a very big problem! Without a foundation of truth, what are we building, why are we building it, and how on earth do we know that we're building it right? Without God's Scripture there to guide us throughout our daily lives, how can we be certain that we're living according to His law, His commands, His calling, His desires, His will for us? You cannot make me understand this!

And this little pair of verses right here ought to utterly decimate any and every argument against believing in the divine authority of Biblical Scripture. Two verses that tell us everything we need to know about the importance, the value, the purpose, and the necessity of having Scripture in our lives as one of the foundational aspects of our faith. So to anyone who doesn't believe that the Bible is God's Word, please explain to me what other resource you have that will give you the same results as Scripture does.

Where do you turn to learn tough lessons that we all know we don’t really want to learn? What helps you make sure you’re growing in righteousness? Who do you count on to honestly tell you when you’re messing up? Who do you go to that you know will not lead you astray by considering your feelings? What is teaching you? What are you learning? How are you growing? Or is all of this maybe the main underlying problem? Is it as simple as the fact that humanity doesn’t want to learn, doesn’t feel the need to improve, isn’t interested in entertaining the idea that they’re wrong, and definitely doesn’t need some old book telling them just wrong they are?

I honestly believe that the main problem is that we're too "smart" for our own good. We're too powerful in our own minds. We're too big and too strong and too deluded to see our flaws and weaknesses. We've become convinced that we can do everything we need to do by ourselves. And we've bought that nonsense because we're still seeking our own glory and feeding our own egos. We're going to do this our way come hell or high water, and we will not ever consider any shred of humility because the thought of having someone else help us is as shameful and horrendous a thought as we can possibly fathom.

But as we've been discussing, we can't do this alone. We've tried. We've all tried. We've all spent plenty of time doing things our way and seeking our own glory through the fulfillment of every desire we could ever dream up. We've all lived with ourselves in the captain's chair so that we could pat ourselves on the back and take pride in everything we've accomplished or obtained for ourselves. Now let me ask you, what did that way of life really give us? Did it bring the glory and success and sense of worth that we were simply sure it would bring?

Or did it bring sin, and shame along with that sin, and regret along with that shame, and the final reality that we were wrong all along?

You see, we all like to believe in this foolish idea that tells us we're big enough, smart enough, strong enough, and righteous enough to live a life free from sin and mistake and filled with all the selfish success and glory and pleasure we could ever want. We think we can have our cake and eat it too. We think that we can manage to live our lives calling all the shots and chasing all of our desires and yet still slide into Heaven all because God's just really nice and wants every single person in Heaven no matter how they lived their lives or how much sin they piled up along the way by thinking they could get by with doing as they pleased and ignoring His Word.

God gave us Scripture for a reason. He knows we need help. He knows we need truth. He knows that if left to our own devices, we're going to ignore Him and try to figure out how to live based solely on what we want without any regard whatsoever as to what is actually right or wrong. He knows that every single human has been born into sin and that if left unchecked, well, we're just gonna stay there because we're hard-headed, foolish, arrogant, and completely and utterly lost. And the worst part, we don't mind it.

Friends, I understand the issue people have with the Bible. It's truth, and we all learned a long time ago that the truth hurts. Nobody wants to learn. Nobody wants to be corrected. Nobody wants to be confronted with the reality that we're not all that. Nobody wants to have to read through the passages that confront our sinful ways. Nobody wants to read things that force them to consider the possibility that they too have made those same mistakes. Nobody wants to endure the utterly terrifying reality that our past choices literally cost a man His life.

No, we just want to skip and dance through life without a care in the world under this idiotic assumption that our best is more than good enough and we're immune to making any mistakes or getting anything wrong. We want to live as if we are perfect little angels who don't need any help in growing because hey, we're already perfect! We don't need no "training in righteousness", we've got that part down! We got this, we always have and always will because our fallen egotistical souls simply can't see it any other way.

Friends, cut the nonsense. Please! Pretty please. Pretty please with whole cherry on top thing and whatever other childish little incentive you need to make you consider it. All Scripture is breathed out by God through man to help mankind learn the ways of living that God expects, demands, and will ultimately reward for following or punish for ignoring. Scripture is our guide to Godly living. It's our constant companion along a journey through a world that is fully lost, fully corrupt, fully wicked, and fully okay with it.

Scripture is God's gift to every human so that we all have the chance to learn what He expects, how to get through this mess, and most importantly, how to grow in righteousness through the perfect example of righteousness found in our Lord and Savior. It teaches us lessons we cannot live decent lives without knowing. It corrects us when we mess up and get things wrong. It rebukes our sinful ways and helps us learn to abhor those sins as it helps us see that those sins separate us from God and all the goodness found in Him. And it trains us. Constantly. Because honestly, we all need a whole lot of work and one lifetime isn't enough to perfect us.

Friends, the whole point of a life of faith isn't some comfortable thoughts that tide us over until Christ returns and we get a reward we never did anything to deserve. The point of a life of faith is to grow. Grow in righteousness. Grow in humility. Grow in compassion. Grow in wisdom. Grow in Christ. Grow into the people that God created us to be when He created us in His image and before we decided to trade that image of holiness for one of worldliness.

And it all hurts. It hurts to read through those lines that hit us in the gut and refuse to let us ignore the fact that we've done those foolish and wicked things we’ve done. It hurts knowing that we've been the ones who held the hammer and picked up the nails and started driving them into an innocent Man. It hurts realizing just how far we've fallen. And it's terrifying when we realize just how much we still have to learn and little time we have left to learn it. But friends, we need that pain because it teaches us to do better. It teaches us to lay down that hammer and take up our cross and live the rest of our lives like we've been changed for the better by the love of a Savior that we do not deserve.

We cannot do this without God's help, but thankfully, we have it. We have it in Scripture. We have His wisdom and guidance in the Bible. Parts will hurt, but we can't run from it because running from it is what we've always done and it's what led us to all the sin and shame that we've found in life. Doubting in God's Word only proves that we're not ready to do what it says and accept the truths that it holds that confront our brokenness. We may not like the feelings of shame or guilt or regret, but they're only precursors that help us know we're doing it right!

If we stay comfortable, then I promise we stay lost. We’ve been taught to avoid pain and embarrassment. And the Bible holds both for every single person who reads those pages. It’s full of stories of other people who got things wrong and made a whole lot of mistakes, mistakes just like the ones that we’ve made. The Bible tells us how to do better, but it can only help us do better by helping us see how wrong we’ve been. We can’t just get the trophy without the hard and often miserable training that comes before the contest.

Friends, every word of the Bible is truth. Every word is alive and active and will cut us up and make us feel like the miserable scumbags that we really are. And nothing about that is fun. But it’s not supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be real. It’s supposed to be eye-opening and heart-breaking and gut-wrenching. God gave us His Word because He knows we’ll simply never go seeking the truth without it. We’d all prefer to stay happily oblivious to our decrepit state. But God refuses to afford us that ease and comfort because He still sees who and what we can be. He still knows that He can do good things in us and through us because He never gave up on us like we gave up on Him.

He still sees a people that He created in His image. It’s time that we start seeing ourselves that way too. And when we do, we’ll realize we’ve went a long way in the wrong direction and need a whole lot of help to get back to who He made us to be. Thankfully, He gave us a map and it’s found only in the Bible.

The whole point of our faith is that we were created to be servants of God, not the servants of ourselves that we’ve become. We’ve all spent years serving ourselves and ignoring anything that may warn against doing so. But it’s time to realize that serving ourselves is nothing but a hollow way of life that will never amount to anything worth having. Sure, it’ll be fun and easy and comfortable, but it will only lead to suffering and misery in the end. Scripture is our training manual for how to be the servants that He created and calls us to be. If we could only humble ourselves to accepting that opportunity, enduring those tough lessons, and appreciating His help and guidance in getting back to where we should have always been, then we’d find that it’s a more rewarding way to spend our time than anything else we’ve found trying to do it all on our own.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold