God Sticks To His Word

It is so important for Christians to read the Bible for ourselves. Part of the reason is that there are false teachers and we must beware of them. Some of them are like wolves in sheep's clothing. And some of them are just sincerely wrong. It is very possible for any of us to be deceived. 

Remember how Jesus said that He was going to send another comforter to us? That is the Holy Spirit, who would indwell us and lead us into all truth. We can trust Him to teach us and to warn us when we see or read something. Even so, believers can take some bypaths and we do not always understand perfectly. We still are human and we are weak. However, I believe if we are faithful to our study of the Word and asking God for wisdom, He will teach us what we need to know. 

In Acts 17 the people from Berea were admired because they were constantly searching the Scriptures to confirm what they were being taught. "Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (verse 11 - NIV) We have advantages over them because they only had the Old Testament -- we have the entire Bible, the revelation of God to us in writing. 

The reason I entitled this little blog "God Sticks To His Word" is because some Churches and some prominent individuals are deviating from the clear teachings of the Bible. Some of us are caving in to relativism and to political correctness. And while some believe their re-interpretations are compassionate or loving, they are forgetting that God is not only loving. He is HOLY and He is JUST and He is IMMUTABLE (does not change). There are more and more instances where professing Christians are embracing the thinking of this world system (which is, in essence, opposed to God -- His enemy). 

The Bible says:

Malachi 3:6 "I the Lord do not change."

Heb.1:10 "And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands... and they shall be changed: but thou art the same. . ." (quote of Psalm 102:25)

Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever."

It is not my purpose here to discuss particular sins. The list of offenses against God is long. Some of them are obvious to us, and others are less visible. But let me just say that the Bible teaches that we have ALL sinned and come short of the glory of God. His standard is Jesus and NONE of us can claim to be as good as He is. In fact, the Bible says there is no good thing in any of us. When we look at each other, we might see different traits that we admire -- but even those things are inferior to Jesus and His altogether perfection. When we come to know Christ, He imputes HIS righteousness to us. So our record in Heaven is clean. A background check up there would reveal no wrong doing. It is by HIS grace that we are saved, but it is on HIS merit and not on our own. 

God does NOT overlook sin, though. He took a huge mountain of sin from every believer and threw it away, never to look at it again. And while he has great compassion toward us, He expects Christians not to settle down and think that anything goes now that we are in His forever family. NO! If we love Him, we will want to KEEP His commandments, not violate and excuse them. We aren't to do that in ourselves or on behalf of anyone else. We are to repent when we fall. See I John 1:9 (if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and to clean us up again). So we must turn away from our sin and apologize to God for it (repent) as often as we need to and that will probably be often. Examples: lose our temper; lie; be rude; put ourselves first; disrespect someone -- and more. (Read I Corinthians 6)

Bottom line, grandchildren: God's opinion is the one that counts. It is an admirable thing to listen to the teachings of others. That is usually very helpful. But check it out in the Bible. GOD is never wrong.