Taking you in and out of life's crazy scenarios

So I went to visit a friend for a couple of days in Evansville this week and on the kitchen table was this book, received after a church visit.

I flipped through it and read some of it and after reading a few pages, I’m really interested in reading the whole thing. It’s extremely biblical and Bible-focused instead of focusing on theories or opinions.

There’s one passage I particularly like and I’m going to type it out below, but first–If you are a believer, and disagree with parts of this, I really encourage you to read it again with an open heart and open mind and really allow God to speak to you.

I am not God, and I don’t pretend to be. The only thing I am sharing, and encouraging is a look at God’s truth about following Him. It’s not supposed to be an easy job and many of the actions in our lives are supposed to go against the ways of the world and human nature. Our home is Heaven, not earth. Like my pastor said last week, “”What’s the purpose of the Church if we’re no different than the world?”

It is not our job to judge or act holier than thou, but it is our job to be a light in the darkness and help to reach people’s hearts.

Ok, here it is:

“Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won’t! You’ll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination. So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it.“

The Bible is God’s Word. That’s a truth. Some people struggle with believing in that, but that’s why it is called faith. You have to have faith to believe in the Bible.

I’m not going to say much more about it other than I will continue to think about it and I hope you do to. We’re all human and we make mistakes and we definitely all make little compromises so that we can do what we want, but still be a “Christian.”

God calls us for more than that. He calls us to be fully devoted and let Him be the Lord over our lives, not just one piece of it.

And I don’t know about you, but His plans always turn out better than mine anyway.