Bible Buffet
James 1:6 (NLT) But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.
Our faith is to be in God alone!! Just like the above scripture states. But how many times do we only pick out parts we like and use them for our life direction. To put our impressions and our thinking into the mix is to water down the pure milk of the word. Our old self will try to use the Bible as a buffet. We go along and pick out things we like and agree with and cull those that stretch us and call for a change in thinking. It is just like a food buffet. The only problem with trying to live our faith like that is we miss the pure wisdom from God and a great leap of wisdom in the growth of our walk. You might think "no harm done, and it is kind of crytic anyway." But that is an excuse for not being "real" in our faith.
Sometimes our lack of following "all" of God's Word will be instigated by only being around people who believe just like us. Biblically, that is fellowship, but it is bad fellowship. If you remember the David Koresh cult in Texas and the compromised way they perceived God's Word, you will see the extreme of a group of people eating from the same buffet and only choosing a certain part of the Bible. That is how cults get started. In most cults there is someone who has a certain impression of what the Bible says and then they act upon their own half truths and use certain parts of the Bible to confirm it. Usually they have a very magnetic personality that is used to draw people in to their way of thinking. Many time cult leaders don't even realize what they are doing until it is too late and then there is no turning back.
Jesus said in Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ When I was a youth pastor I learned really quick that I could influence those teens with half truths and lead them down a path that is not Biblical at all. I could take my pick from the Bible buffet and lead them to eat the same thing and thus lead them astray. I made a firm commitment to preach the whole Bible and let it fall where it might so they could individually draw their impressions from it for their lives. I did that trusting the Holy Spirit would guide them in their lives and put God's everlasting truths in their lives and not my temporal belief about what that scripture was saying. If they got to following and lifting up me, I pointed them to Jesus and Jesus alone. Only God's full Word deserves to be followed. Not me!!
So, when you approach God's Word, don't just pick and choose those things that make you "feel" good. Be mature and let the whole Word of God speak to you and you will experience the growth God wants you to experience. There is a tendency in our old nature to want to think "we've got it." You know, that special thing that God only gives to certain people. Try finding that in your Bible. All are called and all are annointed for serving God and that is a feast of wisdom ordered by God so that it is used by a humble servant.
The Pilgrimage Continues....
David Warren