A thought about Truth and Error:
Error does not become Truth because it is widely accepted;
Truth does not become error, even when it stands alone.
–Unknown
Since God is truth and since He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, truth never changes.
Though there are many people who would like to change truth to fit their circumstances, the Bible is clear that truth does not change. Therefore we can either come to a place of agreeing with God’s truth, or we can stand against God.
The crowds were important to Jesus because of the people in them. Crowds are not trophies to be won. Neither are the crowds “projects” to be completed. Influencing masses of people is not for the leader’s affirmation or self-worth. Crowds are important because of the incredible worth of people.
–Ed Stetzer & Thom Rainer
Wow, the day almost got away from me. I started my morning off with Bible reading and prayer, then did some tweaking on my sermon for tomorrow, then got busy working in the yard, and just now got to a place of sitting down to rest and I had the thought – Oh! I forgot to post something this morning! So here is something that we all need to remember as we think about wanting the adoration of the large numbers that we equate with success.
So there are three levels of how to live with things:
(1) you can steal to get,
(2) or you can work to get,
(3) or you can work to get in order to give.
Many of us live on level two.
Almost all of the forces of our culture urge us to live on level two.
But the Bible is unrelenting in pushing us to level three.
–John Piper
Ephesians 4:28 states that we should not be in level one and that we should move past level two straight into level three: “He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.”
In what level do you find yourself living?
Are you following our cultural norms and expectations and living in level 2?
Or have you allowed God to transform you so that you are living in level 3 where life is not about you, but about pleasing Him and serving others?
Keep moving from where you are to where God wants you to be.
Religion today is not transforming people; rather it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society; it is descending to society’s own level, and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender.
–A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
Tozer could see this occurring more than 50 years ago. And the trend has neither changed nor slowed, but instead has continued to pick up speed and our understanding of God’s Word continues being transformed more and more, such that this powerfully dangerous Word of God is being changed into something tame and safe.
God’s Word has never been safe when taken at face value and understood to truly mean death to oneself in the trading of my will, desire, plans, and goals for God’s will, desire, plans, and goals.
Are you standing on the timeless Word of God allowing it to transform you?
Or Are you working to transform the Word of God to be more palatable to yourself and those around you?
Are you consuming the teachings of God and being changed?
Or are you finding ways to change God’s teachings so that they become safe and powerless?
The New Testament looks on to “the day of judgment,” and proclaims Jesus, the divine Savior, as the divinely-appointed judge…. So the Jesus of the New Testament, who is the world’s Savior, is its Judge as well.
The judge is a person identified with what is good and right. The modern idea that a judge should be cold and dispassionate has no place in the Bible. The biblical judge is expected to love justice and fair play and to loathe all ill-treatment of one person by another. An unjust judge, one who has no interest in seeing right triumph over wrong, is by biblical standards, a monstrosity.
The Bible leaves us in no doubt that God loves righteousness and hates iniquity, and that the ideal of a judge wholly-identified with what is good and right is perfectly fulfilled in him.
–J. I. Packer
Judgment is not wrong. We need judges to decide situations of wrongful behavior.
If someone wrongs us, we want a good judge to decide our case.
We don’t want a judge who lets off the person who wrongs us due to a bribe – that would be an unjust judge.
We don’t want a judge who winks at the other person’s bad behavior due to their being a family member – that would be an unfair, unjust judge.
We want someone who will look at the situation and provide a fair, wise, righteous judgment.
We want someone who will uphold good and right behavior and be angered by sinful, evil actions.
We want someone who will never pervert justice.
Therefore, we want Jesus.
Jesus is the good Judge. Jesus is the ideal Judge.
Not only does he love good and hate sin, but…
He also has grace for us and was willing to take our punishment on the cross.
The just Judge came off the judge’s bench and paid the required payment in our place.
What a perfect Judge!