Trust In God’s Word, Not Man’s

One thing that many people fail to do is to read things with context and this is true whether it’s a piece of literature from a world renowned novelist or author, a word or statement from a politician or world leader, an article from a journalist, or something right out of scripture. We have all experienced this at one point in our lives whether we are the guilty party, a family member, or someone in our church or that we met off the street.

Since I joined the ministry, I have had many discussions from people who are curious about God and/or something out of scripture or with people who have a different perspective than I do. Naturally, there are going to be some disagreements among God’s children related to something within scripture as scripture was not meant to be fully understood. When people hear me say this, I do not believe that people understand what I truly mean by this but rather than understand where I am coming from, there have been people to completely dismiss my statement.

What I mean by such a statement is God is infinite and He knows all things and is not limited by our limitations. We, as human beings, are limited by many things but God is not. There have been different conversations that I have had with secular Christians (those who claim to be a Christian but have invited secular belief systems into their thinking) and nonbelievers who informed they have read the Bible from cover to cover and they don’t fully understand it or, one of my favorite lines, they are able to debunk certain scriptures and prove the Bible to not be accurate.

Do not misunderstand me, I believe scripture is one hundred percent accurate and while nobody will ever understand it one hundred percent, nobody can disprove it, either, despite how adamant these people are. To those secular Christians and nonbelievers who say that I am wrong because I believe in the accuracy of scripture or that I am wasting my time in trying to show them the right way, well, scripture informs us all: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14),

What this means, simply, is that those without the Holy Spirit are not going to understand scripture as they are unable to see things from a Godly perspective. Imagine If You Will being a Christian and desiring to understand something more but unable to. When this is the case, we pray for guidance and ask God to help us see what we are unable to but the nonbeliever or the Christian that accepts the ways of the secular world do not have the spirit of God to help them and we know the Spirit is with us as we are told that God will lead and guide us each step: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye” (Psalms 32:8).

James 1:5-6 reads “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” In other words, all we have to do is ask God but when we ask God, we must be strong in our faith. There is a significant reason why we need faith as not all things are able to be grasped simply and many times, we will be left without a clear answer so we must rest in our faith and know that God is in control. Rather than wavering from our faith, we must be in strength and remain in our faith through all things.

Proverbs 16:9 informs us that “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” and while we may not understand all things, just walk in the path of the Lord. We know that He is there and Christ clearly lets us know this: “….I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life….” (John 8:12). We must rest in Christ because we cannot believe everyone that says they are preaching the word of God and scripture is clear on this: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

While there are many that question God’s word and take what man says over what God says, we cannot let this deter us. We cannot allow those around us to take us away from God regardless of how hard it may be. There have been many to set out to disprove what God says but they have never been able to do so. In fact, there have been many men to set out to disprove what scripture says and the more they dig deep into scripture and history, the more they find that scripture is, in fact, accurate:” “To be honest, I didn’t want to believe that Christianity could radically transform someone’s character and values. It was much easier to raise doubts and manufacture outrageous objections that to consider the possibility that God actually could trigger a revolutionary turn-around in such a depraved and degenerate life” (Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity).

To be honest, I didn’t want to believe that Christianity could radically transform someone’s character and values. It was much easier to raise doubts and manufacture outrageous objections that to consider the possibility that God actually could trigger a revolutionary turn-around in such a depraved and degenerate life”

–LEE STROBEL, THE CASE FOR FAITH: A JOURNALIST INVESTIGATES THE TOUGHEST OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY