Romans 14:10-12
You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Why is it that when my friends made bad decisions, did I follow them in some but not in others? Why did we together get so far off the straight path and only a few of us found our way back?
Some people can learn from other people’s mistakes. Some people must learn from making their own mistakes. And still others make mistakes and seem never to be able to learn that there’s something better.
I have had to cut the cord with a few friends over the years. It was either that or be taken down with them. This was not ever an easy thing to do. I felt like I was betraying them. I felt like I should at least stick it out and try to pull them back in. But had I not cut cords then perhaps I also would have fallen over the ledge.
Matthew 18:15-17
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
Cutting cords is painful. A friend’s mom asked me why I never hung out with her son anymore. I said because he doesn’t want to change and I knew that if I linked back up with him, then I’d go back into that same rut. She was hurt by this. She said that I was in the same place with him and questioned what made me better than he. I tried to explain that it wasn’t that I was better but that I made the choice to get right and he still needed to.
2 Peter 2:22
Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
A guy that was in my youth group was playing with the line – one step in the world and the other with God. When confronted he’d say that he would choose to get right with God later but right now he was choosing the world. He even had the idea that by doing it that way it would make his testimony more miraculous. Oh, how good we are at justifying our sin in one way or another.
Revelations 3:15-16
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
I know that in and of myself there is no clean thing. In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, “I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.” I wish I was that original but I like using other people's quotes. However, I do echo his heart.
Ephesians 2:8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Glory be to God for His unmerited grace and mercy! Glory be to Christ Jesus who died upon the cross and rose from the dead to defeat sin and justify us before a rightous and holy God!
6 comments:
Thanks for posting this.
Kyle, I know you've been dealing with a little of this, so tell me. When you hear a different intrepretation of Scripture than what you've been taught how do you determine which is correct? I've heard some things lately that are different than what I have learned over the years, and I'm not sure how to decide for myself. Can you give me any insight?
Here's the bottom line: The Bible is an authority in and of it self. If anything contradicts its contents then it is not correct. All it took for the serpent in the garden to deceive Eve and Adam was to take the truth and give it a twist. I consider half truth concerning the Bible to be the beginning of a very quickly deteriorating slope. The best way to get a handle on something is to follow it to its ultimate end. Some of these liberal and postmodern ideas that I am being hit with at school sound good as it is presented but mulling over it and following it to its end will take you to a very off the mark theology. The analogy of a ship being turned a few degrees off its course and traveling for 500 miles will produce a ship that is very off course, works very well to illustrate this point.
Kyle, your friend Lori's question is a necessary question to ask. I think there may not be just one answer. I think the tricky part comes in the fact that we are all interpreters of the Bible. We've all been shaped to read scripture in particular ways. I think being aware of that is a good place to start. And I think learning about the process and methods of biblical interpretation is important. Of course there are things that may be obviously wrong when we encounter them. However, I've had my fair share of reorientation theologically... and that was a very deliberately careful process.
I hope I did not come across as to down play the necessity of questioning what anyone is being taught. We are told to question what is being preached to us. I am open to new ideas but I am very cautious. I don't however think this is a wall I've built that will keep me from learning or being reorientated theologically. Walls are healthy to have. As the people rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem they constructed with one hand and the other was at their sword. Neh. 4:16-18
Post a Comment