Only God's Word

Colossians 2:¹⁶ Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day— ¹⁷ things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. ¹⁸ Take care that no one keeps defrauding you of your prize by delighting in humility and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, ¹⁹ and not holding firmly to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. ²⁰ If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, ²¹ “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” ²² (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of man? ²³ These are matters which do have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

One of the dangers of home-made religion is "we come up with our own rules," and those rules are flawed because they come from US. God's Word is alive and working, and it is totally perfect in every way. Our rules are based on "our filters", which are imperfect in every form. We might get close with our reasoning on a couple of things, but only close. This is where false statements are born. Like "cleanliness is next to Godliness." It's good to be clean, but only the righteousness of God provided by God is really Godly. That is a "saying" and it comes from an imperfect human's reasoning, which usually doesn't have much wisdom. Saying (def) - a short, pithy expression that generally contains advice or wisdom. The difference between saying a truth from God's Word is that the saying tells us to "try it," and the Bible says "base your life on it." MAJOR DIFFERENCE

Don't make up your own version of the Bible just to please yourself, but let it speak to you, and you will get a vast amount of wisdom and pure truth. Also, don't treat God's Word as a last resort, but as a first look when you need wisdom. And we need wisdom!! Be choosy about where you get this wisdom and put God's Word first on your list. If you do put His Word first, you will get to the point where you will begin to rely on Only God's Word, and in these tumultuous days, it will guide you around the snares in life. I trust it totally,

and I hope you do too.

Today's Message,

David Warren