Being led by God in all we do
You know, I've only been in the ministry for 25 years now; but that's been long enough to notice our tendency to put more faith in commentators than in the Bible itself. I was guilty of that for years myself until God asked me to personally give Him one reason why He shouldn't send me to hell; & suddenly my mind went blank. I couldn't give God one reason why He shouldn't send me to hell. That's when God shared this truth with me; The greatest distance in the whole world is only 18 inches. That's the distance from a man's head to his heart. A whole lot of reality has been explained away in man's quest to understand infinite truth with a finite mind. The apostle Paul said this about the practice; Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged. ( 1st Corinthians 2:14) Am I the only one who ever questioned how 5,000 people being led by the same Spirit of God could end up believing 5,000 different things. God once showed me a giant jigsaw puzzle with 5,000 pieces; & God gave one piece of the puzzle to 5,000 individual believers. His intention was that they'd be dependent on one another to understand the whole picture; but each of these individual believers laid their one piece of the puzzle next to a canvas & painted a whole picture around that one piece. The end result? 5,000 pictures nothing like the original. Whole churches have been split by men who were trying to understand infinite truth with finite minds. How much reality hs been lost through trying to understand the ways of God's kingdom, instead of seeking God's guidance; even though the Bible itself refers to knowledge as a stolen fruit LOL For years I helped out with seminars @ Louisiana State Penitentiary @ Angola Louisiana; & each time I went I gave away the study Bible I had with me. Inside the cover of each Bible I wrote these simple words; Before you open this book, open your heart to receive from God through prayer. We wouldn't have the trouble we have today in our denominations & individual churches if we'd all seek God's guidance before we open our Bibles. Even in the book of Acts we can see a trend developing in the very beginning. A church that was once one big family who wholeheartedly took care of one another were fighting over who was getting the most help a short time later. I'm reminded of another scripture; Are you so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:3) Remember the statement of Jesus; Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. (Mark 7:9) Sorry, I seem to have gotten up on my soapbox again; but this is a very important subject with me. Over the years I've seen a whole lot of message boards ruined by well meaning men & women who put more faith in interpretations of the word of God than in the word of God itself. A catholic brother in law once told me; If the Bible disagrees with the teachings of my church, I'll stand on it's teachings. A few years back, after 21 days of prayer & fasting about the apparent differences I saw in our own churches between the things taught in the Bible & the practices of it's members, God pointed out a passage in Matthew 7:15-23 which first warned of false teachers who would lead many astray in the last days, He said You'll know them by their fruit. I define fruit as the effect the things you believe are having on your heart & mind. After 20 years of believing the same things, what kind of person have you become? I often say; If what you believe isn't changing you, then maybe you need to change what you believe. I'm sorry for this outburst. The fruit I've seen in the lives of people who tended to put more faith in the traditions of men than in the word of God itself are 3fold, & they're listed in 1st John 2:15-17; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, & the pride of life.
God's Marine