One thing I realized is that we all want to know God and yearn to be His friend and have a closeness with him but we disregard the way He designed that to happen. You can not know God without knowing the scriptures, the Word, the Bible...whatever term you want to use. Pure and simple. God has revealed so much of his thoughts, his character, his intentions, his advice, his commandments, his desires, what he wants, what we should do, how we should act, how we should think, how to treat adversity, how to treat abundance, etc, all in the scriptures but because of our own biases, deceptions, disappointment, or some other "bible toting" person actions, we diminish the power and necessity of the Bible for several reasons.
It is like saying I want to know how to make a cake but I don't want to look a recipe. We want others to tell us what to do, psychics, fortune cookies, friends. etc because that is a whole lot easier than pulling out the scriptures and spending time with God. Why do you think so many false prophets and money hungry televangelists have been so successful in this country. Because we'd rather rely or even pay for another to tell us about God than to discover him for ourselves.
The flip side to this error is the some have decided that as long as they have God they don't need other people. We don't need Jesus, a pastor, or teacher, or to go to church to be with other congregants. All we need is God. That isn't scriptural either. The bible is full of encouragement to get to know others, serve other, learn from each other, and teach others. We can't do that with a "lone ranger" attitude. Because in the course of being in community with others we see what about us needs to change.
I have decided that I can no longer rely on the every
changing ideas of culture as an accurate source of guidance on what i should and should not do. It hasn't been working well for me. Cultural ideologies change too often and I need a foundation that will let me navigate what is worth my time and attention and what is not.
In that
vein, I have turned to the Bible for my source of wisdom. So I am beginning a
new series I am calling Scriptural Gems. I have made the commitment to read the
bible every day. I cannot know God and not know what the bible, his written
word, says. He speaks to our hearts in every situation through the scriptures
if we open ourselves to listen. Scriptural gems will be posts on how the
scriptures are speaking to me. I am excited to share some of the insights I
get. Understand this isn’t an in depth exegesis or analysis or study of
scripture. It is simply my response to what a particular scripture says and how
I feel about. I don’t claim that my feelings will always be right but that is
the beauty of a relationship of Christ…we can grow!
Wholeheartedly me,
Julia
No comments:
Post a Comment