There are many people who have been taught and led to believe that God is responsible for all the tragedy in the world. They believe he is responsible for the earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, and all the other natural disasters that take place. Most often in those situations where such disasters occur, you will quite often hear the phrase, an act of God associated with them. In legal terms, the phrase, an act of God is defined as any extraordinary interruption caused solely by the effect of nature or natural causes that no one can reasonably foresee or prevent; it is a natural catastrophe caused without any interference by humans whatsoever.
Then there are those who believe God is responsible for the daily struggles that so many go through every day, such as depression, fear, worry, anxiety, confusion, doubt, discouragement, low self-esteem, poverty, sickness, and death. They have been taught and truly believe that everyone suffers these things because this is the will of God. That old cliché, God will not put more on you than you can bear, appears to fall in line with the old teachings that God is responsible for the things that happen to us. They also believe that God uses these things so that he can chasten his children. They are convinced that there is some type of life lesson that God wants his children to learn through these experiences.
These lessons, resembling some kind of How-to lessons, include things like our dependence on God, our trust in God, our walk with God, and anything else that draws us closer to God. And while some of these How-to lessons sound a little farfetched even as we write about them, most of us do not put much thought into them because we have been led to believe that they are from God himself. We tend to accept, without question, these things because we have been trained, from an early age, that God’s ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). We also have been taught that only disobedient Christians questioned the things of God and somehow God would breathe fire and brimstone down upon them, sending them straight to hell for doing such a blasphemous thing.
It was these types of things that we were taught that functioned as the foundational building blocks for our belief system; a system built entirely on the things that we were taught from our childhood. Our childhood belief system came entirely from all those things that we just accepted as truth, without question. Over the years, we have attempted to re-enforce our foundation with solid biblical information and fundamental truths. We have checked things out for ourselves and have decided which so-called truths fit into our belief system. We have compared all the relative information and related scriptures, accepting everything, regardless of the source, that we believe to be truth and that which appears to affirm our beliefs. We have sewn these things into the very fabric of our belief system and have removed everything that does not agree with our current beliefs. We have even closed our minds to anything that sounds contrary to what we believe.
This will be hard for some to accept, but much of our beliefs are grounded in traditionalism and denominationalism. These things have been so ingrained into our belief system that we have become imprisoned by misinformation, misinterpretations, and untruths. Instead of having an open mind so that we may gain a better understanding of the things of God, we have closed our minds and limited our knowledge. And because we have limited our knowledge, we have limited our understanding.
God says that his people are destroyed because they lack knowledge. This lack of knowledge is not because the knowledge is hidden or because it is not available, but because his people have rejected it (Hosea 4:6). Because we lack the knowledge, we lack the understanding that comes from God. And because we lack the understanding that comes from God, we are left with the understanding that comes from the world. And it is the understanding that the world offers that has led so many into captivity (Isaiah 5:13). When was the last time you re-examined your belief system?
We pray that our inspirational message will bless you as well as inform you. If blessed by this message, please share so that others may be blessed as well. Amen.
Enjoy your blessings - KW
No comments:
Post a Comment