I read a few statements tonight that said, “Sadly, many people who assume they are saved are lost.” Here’s another one, “Verbally professing that Jesus is Lord is necessary, but it is meaningless apart from a faith commitment to follow Him.” And let’s finish off with, “The only way to know Jesus personally is to yield our hearts to Him by faith, that is, to make Him Lord of our lives. Anything less is just religious ritual and activity.”
These were just three of the statements I read again tonight, and taught in a Sunday School lesson just a while back. By themselves they were enough to get my attention, and in truth just those three statements can provide me with more than enough to meditate on for a long time. How about you?
Are these statements true? Sadly, the truth is that the majority of people reading this probably don’t know for sure if you believe what the statistics say about people and their knowledge of God’s Word. And, you see that’s the problem. A lot of people say a lot of things, and they write a lot of things, too. How do you know that any of them are true?
There’s only one real way to know, and that’s to search it out in not what others publish about God’s Word, but IN God’s Word. Yet, even in this, we must be careful because people like to use what are called “proof texts” which are exactly what they’re called, text that can be used to make a particular point. Many, many people quote Scripture in this way, and in and of itself there’s nothing wrong with quoting Scripture, but just remember that the devil can quote Scripture with the best of them, and like him, there are people in this world who use it to mislead others every bit as much and as well as he does.
Please remember that even the best, most well-intentioned, most literate, and most educated people on earth can be wrong, and that’s why we need to do more than just trust what someone tells us. We need to make sure by doing the work to find out if we’re being told the truth.
And remember this, too, getting a part and parcel of truth is as much a blatant lie as a lie. People teach God is a God of Love and so He is, but He is also a God of Justice, Holiness, and Perfection. You’ve heard the phrase “The truth and the WHOLE truth,” and there’s only way to know the difference.
wayneaugden 