HOW WE JUDGE GOD The Word of God clearly commands, You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above (Exodus 20:4 NIV). There is not a Christian alive who would knowingly breach this command. The very idea appalls us. Yet, in the most subtle and seductive manner, we all are guilty of idolatry to some degree. We do not commit idolatry by going into the woods, cutting down a tree, fashioning it into an image, and bowing before it. No one would dare such an insult to God. Nevertheless, we are just as guilty of creating idols as any other generation. We do not create our idols with an ax and carpenters tools, but with our vain imaginations. Our vain imagination becomes a high thing that opposes all that we know about God through His Word and through the life of Jesus. To be blunt, we create idolatrous concepts of God when we pass judgment on Him. We Judge God because We Dont Believe What He Says The children of Israel judged God and found Him guilty. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. (Hebrews 3:7-9 NKJV) While in the wilderness, the children of Israel put God on trial and found Him guilty of lying. They judged Him as unable to bring them into the land of Canaan as He had promised. For forty years they tested God that is, they kept Him on trial because they did not consider Him able or willing to do what He said. The truth is, they knew God was able. They had seen all His works as they had come out of Egypt. They had seen Pharaoh and his armies defeated. They had seen the miracle of the Red Sea parting. They had experienced enough miraculous phenomena with God that they should have had no problem believing His promise. The fact of the matter is that they really didnt trust themselves. Like us, they had no problem believing in the mighty power of God. The Israelites believed His every promise-until it had to be done through them. I have given you the land; go up and drive out the inhabitants, seems like a contradictory message. Yet that is exactly what God said to them. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the LoRD God of your fathers hath given you? (Joshua 18:3). They trusted Gods power until they had to trust it to work through them. You see, we attempt to recreate God in our own image. Instead of opening our minds and hearts to see things the way God shows them to us, we want to make God see things the way we show them to Him. The word imaginations in 2 Corinthians 10 comes from the Greek word logos. Logos has to do with logic, reasoning, or computation. (See Strongs Concordance, #G3056.) The New King James Version translates it as arguments. A vain imagination is the result of reasoning, computing, and reaching a concept about God that is not based on truth or reality. It is an argument with reality. Taken from: HOW TO STOP THE PAIN by James B. Richards
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 17:16:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015