The Way, the Truth, and the Life.

From time to time, a sermon, an online teaching, or a devotional will bring an aspect of the Word of God to us in such a way that we may see things differently than we have before, and this is good and should be welcome. Clearly, we must always review any new perspective against what the Word actually says, but even there, our prior concepts, how we may have been taught in the past, or our own assumptions, may affect our understanding when we go back to the actual Word.

When I was writing my doctoral thesis, now out as a book, the Lord showed it to me this way: We need to conform our beliefs to the Word of God, not conform the Word of God to our beliefs.

IN SUMMARY:

We need to evaluate our beliefs in light of the Word of God, not evaluate or even “spin” the Word of God in light of our beliefs. 

Too often we can limit God by how we believe He moves or doesn’t move, or we can limit the work of Holy Spirit by what we believe about how He sees us personally. But in fact, God is not limited, it’s only us who may force limitations on ourselves or try to force those on others. But truly, God is not limited by our perception of Him, but our perception of Him could limit our faith in how He can move on our behalf and in the ministries in which we find ourselves.

If we don’t accept the whole of the gospel as presented in the Bible, that the Holy Spirit is every bit as able to move in today’s world as He did in the days of the apostles; that Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection accomplished with the Word says it did; and that God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think, we may be selling ourselves short.

So let’s determine to believe that God is who He says He is, that He acts the way the word says He does, and that He works through believers and in the church in the way the Word describes, so that we can live in the fullness of Christ from day-to-day and moment to moment.