When life hits hard, it hurts. A death, a sickness, a tragedy. Life is raw, our world is broken and death is a reality. Those are the facts. Amidst the pain that inevitably comes with each and every life, I want to issue a challenge to all of us.
It is so very easy to allow our view of God, people and the world around us to be shaped by our personal experiences and the emotions that flow from them. For those of us who claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, this is not to be so. If we claim that we are His and that His Word is truth, our understanding of the world around us and of the things of God must be dictated according to the pages of Scripture.
If we claim that we are His, and that His Word is truth, our understanding of the world around us and of the things of God is to be dictated according to the very pages of Scripture
Any time we catch ourselves saying “my God would or wouldn’t…” or “a loving God would never…”, may we stop ourselves. He’s not just “my god.” Our Lord is the Creator of the Universe, our magnificent and precious Savior and King. He is who He says He is and His definition of love is completely different than the self-promoting, love is only doing what makes someone happy, feel good definition we’ve been led to accept in Western society.
The realities of Scripture are often hard to believe and understand, but oh fellow Believer, I can assure you the more we allow Scripture to dictate our theology, the more precious our Savior becomes. He doesn’t need us to fix of soften His message. He is more beautiful, more magnificent and more divine than any emotionally derived pocket genie version of Jesus ever will be. That is why He is God and we are not. For if we could understand all of His ways, God would not be who He claims to be.
if we could understand all of His ways, God would not be who He claims to be
How much more, then, should we seek to study, understand and deepen our knowledge of faith in this new year? John 17:17 says that His Word is truth. We must be studiers of truth and allow it, even in the midst of our hardest times, to dictate what we know reality to be – for all Scripture is breathed out of the mouth of our Savior (2 Tim 3:16). Take time to know our precious Lord in this new year and allow Him to become ever more Sovereign, great and magnificent than you could have ever created or imagined.
joyfullywed 