2009-05-15
Good Morning Cherished Ones,
For quite awhile, the Holy Spirit has been directing me to write about comparisons between MT 7: 1-2, 6 and MT 7: 15-20 the parable of the tree and its fruit. This leads us to ask the question: Is doctrine really important? To find God’s opinion on that, it is necessary for us to look at a group of Scriptures that illuminate this issue. How can I not begin with 2 TIM 3: 16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed and useful in teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living, so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed.” Now, that’s a given. The problem is that many people don’t take the time or simply don’t have the discipline to learn Scripture. This makes them vulnerable to assault by false prophets. I’ve also seen the “dumbing down” of the Bible with video games and the like. God knows we need to be self-disciplined and willing to think for ourselves, because the evil one is wily and cunning. He knows where we are vulnerable and attacks quickly and quietly in the beginning to establish a stronghold of sin or wrongful thought and behavior. 1 PET 5: 8, “Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the devil, roams around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” None of us are entirely immune from such an incursion into our souls, but those who are well versed in God’s word and thus, mature in their faith, are the least likely to be attacked this way-just as long as they don’t become complacent and self-satisfied.
EPH 4: 13-14, “And so we shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ’s full stature. Then we shall no longer be children, carried by the waves and blown about by every shifting wind of the teaching of deceitful men, who lead others in to error by the tricks they invent.” To enjoy every gem included in this passage, let’s look at it from it’s parts. “We shall come together to that oneness of faith and in our knowledge of God”: How can there be anything but oneness of faith, if we all study from Scriptures, submit to the God’s righteous power, live by Christ’s example, and allow ourselves to benefit from the consistency of God’s word? The same can be said for our knowledge of God, if we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, have the courage to follow His direction, and reject wild hermeneutics –wild extrapolations in interpreting God’s word. Needless to say, having an active prayer life-two way communication between God and man, where God gets to speak first-is an important part of really getting to know God. That’s study and prayer, and to them we must add piety and relationship with God. God is a Person, and He desires to have a close, strong relationship with us. He desires that He should become the Leader in our lives. In return for a promise that He will protect, defend, help, lend His wisdom to our lives and constantly love us, we can freely enter into a relationship with Him that can be mutually satisfying as no other. When we open our hearts fully to this, the Holy Spirit gives us true faith.
“We shall no longer be children, carried by the waves and blown about by every shifting wind of the teaching of deceitful men…” We know that a toddler unwilling to eat much solid food is denying himself the opportunity to mature in his eating habits. The writer of Hebrews [who I strongly suspect is Paul] used this as an analogy to people who continually refuse to move beyond the simple basic teaching they had when they first joined the church. HE 5: 13-14, “Anyone who has to drink milk is still a child, without any experience in the matter of right and wrong. Solid food, on the other hand, is for adults, who through practice are able to distinguish between good and evil.” While God knows we are not all going to hold a doctor of theology degree, we can certainly grow well beyond the basics of His word, learning to be less selfish in our approach to life, and more willing to be good disciples who are unafraid, either by example or by word, to spread the truth of Christ’s Gospel. I’m sure that there were many people who felt they completely understood the teaching of the Lord. Apollos’ teaching in the synagogue in Ephesus is an example, as he was teaching only the baptism of by water and not that by the Spirit. But when two people who had a deeper understanding, Priscilla and Aquila, heard him, “they took Apollos home and explained to him more correctly the Way of God” [AC 18: 24-26]. To Apollos’ credit, he took in this added information and probably became a very effective speaker on behalf of the truth. Sadly, however, there are many more people who go only so far and then refuse to learn more. It is this second group who make themselves vulnerable to attach by the adversary. As many years as I have been studying the word of God daily on my own, I still feel the need for and great satisfaction from Sunday school classes, listening to sermons during worship services, and even attending women’s Bible study during the week.
It’s clear to me that I can’t discuss every verse the Holy Spirit has given me in this one devotion. So, I will take as many as necessary with the understanding that we will be taken on a very informative and even exciting ride, as the Holy Spirit leads us to move from the “milk to the meat” of what God has to share with us. All the while, the Holy Spirit wants us to remember this is all to help us better understand Christ’s teaching on judgments in His Sermon on the Mount.
PRAYER: O Most Holy Father, once again we boldly and confidently approach Your throne with our hearts open to Your Spirit and a great desire to be better in our relationship with You. We acknowledge that You show us Your wisdom and faithfulness. You show us we can count on You and turn to You at any time [EPH 3: 12]. It is our Lord Jesus Christ, Who holds us by the hand and takes us, step by step, through our trials. It is from Him that we learn to have a relationship that is mutually satisfying, as He models for us His relationship with You. It is through Him that we see Your goodness, especially exemplified by Your sacrifice of His physical life, so that we can be free of past sin and in union with Him, be saved, as He was [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25]. We never tire of praising and thanking You and Him for giving us the gift of the Holy Spirit, for protecting us, and for showing us what living righteously is. Discernment and wisdom are not all of what You require, but they are fundamental to our making godly decisions and correctly reading and understanding what is going on in our lives. Our very interactions with others must be read correctly too. The foundational ground upon which we stand is Your teaching. We are eternally grateful that You care about every detail of our lives [PS 37: 23-24], that You direct us while protecting us [PS 32: 8; PS 139: 5], and that You guide us in decision-making [PS 119: 10]. PS 111: 10, “The way to become wise is to have reverence for the Lord. He gives sound judgment to all who obey His commands. He is to be praised forever.” The way You teach is to pick our battles wisely, as Your Son did, to show the fruits of the Spirit, and to seek You often are pearls of great price to us. So, Dearest Abba, we thank and praise You for Your marvelous presence in our lives and the lives of all who believe in Jesus Christ. We offer this prayer in His mighty and holy name, Amen.
Next week, we’ll look into the tiny books of Timothy near the end of the NT for more illumination on dealing with discerning false teaching. There’s no question that it takes some maturity to better discern who is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” [MT 7: 15]. I know young people with more maturity than some over 40’s, which causes me to wonder what it is that makes us mature. Similarly, I know older people who have never matured. In a way, I have been answering part of that question spiritually, but we need to deal with emotional, intellectual, and physical maturity too. Physical maturity happens by the passage of time to people. Stimulating and enriching it are done by getting the right amounts of sleep, exercise, good nutrition, and clean living. Intellectual maturity is furthered by getting a good education, both practical and academic. Inherent in a good education is learning how to evaluate and analyze that data before us. Learning self-discipline and discernment comes out of learning from our experiences and listening to the advice of those more mature than we are. I remember trying to teach my son to manage his money. It took years to do that after some very bad disappointments, but thanks to God, it finally happened after he found himself and his life mired by the quicksand of mounting consumer debts and suffered the consequences of this. His buying sprees soon stopped. Emotional maturity is probably one of the most difficult to attain. This has its basis in learning to be unselfish, learning self-discipline, acknowledging relationships of one thing to another, and learning to make well-considered commitments. God did this when He decided to enter into the Covenant of Grace with us. Can we imagine what our lives would be like if God wallowed in juvenile emotions and never made commitments? There is so much more to this than space in this devotion allows, and I promise it will be discussed over time. For the time being, rest consoled that our God loves us and always wants what is in our best eternal interests. Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn