Role Model
You might be wondering just what Christianity and the Bible are all about. "What,
exactly, does God want from me?" you might be thinking. Is going to
church what he wants from you? Does God want your money? Does God want you
to stop having fun?
I am a very shy person. I am always uneasy meeting new people. I have
always been different than everyone around me. I have always been the person
who would break away from the crowd and go a different way, a way that I
figured was better. In my early days as a Christian I was deeply concerned
that because of my enthusiasm for God, and my dedication to the study of
his Word, God would make me a preacher or something. This really frightened
me. My fear that God would require me to stand up and lead kept me from
fully seeking the Lord.
I now know that such fear is unfounded. I now know that God will both
enable you to do what he desires, and give you the desire to do it, that
is, if you are faithful to him.
People frequently ask me why I don't become a preacher. They say, "Why
don't you start your own church, or something" (It is usually people
who are not yet practicing Christians who ask.) I know what they really
mean, so I don't bother explaining that there is only one Church, and I
would never think of starting another. I smile and say, "Because the
Lord has not told me to be a preacher."
I have had people within the Church ask me why I don't go to a Bible college
or seminary and get myself ordained. And I always respond to them, "The
Lord has not led me to do that."
The world has developed ideas about how exactly a person is supposed to
serve in the Church. The idea is that if a person is to give their all for
God they should go to Bible college, get ordained as a minister, then become
a pastor or evangelist or possibly a teacher. You know, make it official.
Is this what the Bible teaches? Is this how the early Church operated?
Did Jesus go to Bible college? Did the apostles? I have never found any
place in the Bible that even suggests that Jesus had any formal Bible training.
Speaking of Peter and John, the members of the Sanhedrin thought:
Acts 4:13
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were
unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that
these men had been with Jesus. (NIV)
Ordinary and unschooled men. Well, that sounds like me. I am certainly
ordinary and have had no official Christian education."But," you
say, "they were personally educated by the Lord himself." Well,
who do you think has been personally guiding me through my Bible
studies? I tell you, my beloved reader, that I love the Lord Jesus Christ,
and I, to the best of my ability, and to the limit of my knowledge, obey
his commands. So...
Christ: Our Tutor
John 14:15-17, 25-26
If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--
17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither
sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will
be in you. ...25 "All this I have spoken while still with you. 26
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said
to you. (NIV)
John 15:26
When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the
Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. (NIV)
John 16:12-15
I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when
he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will
not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell
you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what
is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is
mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make
it known to you. (NIV)
What these Scriptures are saying is that when a person comes to Christ,
and believes that he is the Son of God, believes that he was crucified for
their sin, that he was resurrected from the grave, that he now offers salvation
to any who will give themselves to him, that person enters into God; and
God, through the Spirit, enters into them, which brings their dead spirit
to life. The living Spirit of Christ then abides inside your heart, and
teaches you all things, provided of course you are obedient to the teaching.
Think of it, a twenty-four hour a day personal tutor. And that the personal
tutor is God himself. But remember, having the finest tutor in the world
will do you no good, if you are not a good student. You must be attentive,
diligent, humble, (that is, willing to accept what God says is true), honest,
and obedient.
I am not saying that going to a place of Christian education is bad. There
is nothing wrong with having other people help you along by showing you
how to study the Bible, and pointing out how certain things fit together.
The problem is not with the school, but with the student. The problem with
the student is not exclusive with the student of a Bible college. Students
of today, in all areas of study, lazily sit there and let someone else feed
them, to the extent that they are paying attention at all.
Teachers Can Be Wrong
What if what the Bible teacher is telling you is wrong? How will you know?
Don't think that because their teaching conforms with any given denomination's
that it is for that reason correct. Don't think that because everybody agrees
with it, that it is right. Remember that a great majority of the Bible teachers
in Jesus' day rejected him as did their students.
Don't be like Adam, who when questioned by God concerning what he did,
tried to pass the blame to his wife. God held him responsible, because he
had God's Word on the matter, even though he listened to his wife and committed
transgression. In the same way, you have in your possession, or can readily
obtain a copy of God's Word, and are personally responsible to God for obeying
his commands. If you aren't a good student, and don't apply yourself to
reading his Word--personally--but rather let other people tell you what
it means, then you are at the mercy of those other people. I am not saying
that the Bible teachers out there are intentionally misleading the people.
I am not saying that at all. Virtually every Bible teacher I have talked
to, heard, or met, is teaching what they sincerely believe is right, but
as I understand the Scriptures much of what they say has subtle errors in
it, or only deals with the most basic aspects of Christianity.
A Modern Parable:
There was a land filled with people who loved mathematics, and believed
that knowledge of it was important. That generation tried to instill a
love for mathematics on the next generation, but was only marginally successful.
As the generations passed, so did the love for mathematics. The students
resisted anything beyond the absolute minimum that they needed to get jobs
and such. The teachers too had no love for it, and so they taught by rote
the little the students could grasp.
Over time the whys, and hows, and the reasons, were lost. The students
learned that this plus that was equal to that, and this times that raised
to this was equal to this, and so on, and so on, and so on...
Eventually errors crept in, but no one noticed, because lost was the
love for the purity of its expression. Very few knew the errors were there,
and fewer still cared.
In the end many of the people began to question the value of mathematics.
They reasoned that because more times than not it didn't work correctly,
that mathematics is not a true science.
This is the state of much of the Christian teaching today. When the teachers
start teaching things that they have been taught by other teachers and not
received from God, then over time subtle errors creep in, because they don't
really understand what they are teaching. This results in their inability
to see the subtle errors. Over time that can develop into a very serious
lack of true understanding.
God wants you to love him. He wants you to desire so strongly to know
him that you will seek him out, earnestly, and diligently. He wants you
to be honest in your knowledge, and humble, so that when you see something
in his Word that seems to contradict what you hold to be true, that you
will pray, and seek, and read, and come to know what the Bible really says,
and not what someone has told you. He wants you to love him more
than the people of the world, so that you will stand on what he has revealed
to you, even in the face of persecution from your friends.
I tell you, my beloved reader, that I love the Lord. I will stand on what
he has shown me to the end, even if I must stand completely alone. Many
times, well meaning Bible teachers and ministers have tried to force me
to conform to the accepted teaching. I have been advised not to stray from
the traditional accepted belief. But my response is a gentle, but firm, "But
the Bible says this-or-that."
One Christian pastor told me that I read my Bible too much; it gives me
ideas. Well praise God for those ideas. Please don't get the idea that I
preach some strange message. If you read through the articles you will see
that they are only subtlety different. Little things can mean a lot though.
In my story above, the problem was not with mathematics, but in what the
people had come to believe about mathematics. (I don't care one way or the
other, personally, about mathematics.) Mathematics was no longer a living
thing, but something to be remembered by rote. The same is true of the Bible
today. For most people the Bible is not a living person, to be loved and
known intimately, but a book of rules to learn and live by. And so the people
let others teach them the rules, and never come to really know and love
God.
My dear reader, I definitely don't want you to get the idea that I am
speaking against Bible colleges. I am not. I am speaking against sitting
there and letting someone, other than God, tell you what is what. You must
seek out and receive from God a personal relationship with him. You must
hunger and thirst for a personal, intimate, knowledge of him. God is courting
you and you must respond. God is revealing his true self to you, in the
Scriptures, in the hope that you will be drawn to him through what you see.
This is a true courtship. It is not religion. God wants a true and alive
relationship of love, and faith, and hope with you. But this will not happen
by accident. You must seek him and desire him.
God is holy and righteous, and as long as you 'waller' around in unholiness
you will be separated from an intimate relationship with him. Deep down
in your heart you know this is true.
Think of this in human terms. What kind of relationship exists if your
spouse is disappointed in you because of your crude and debase behavior?
If your spouse views you in this way, is this the foundation for a loving
and trusting relationship? Neither you nor your spouse would be happy in
this situation.
God Desires You
The first thing in building a healthy and loving relationship with God
is knowing that he desires it.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come
to repentance. (NIV)
So we see in this Scripture that God most definitely wants you. God will
turn no one away who seeks him with a repentant and sincere heart. There
is nothing you could have done in the past that God is unwilling to forgive,
if you truly repent, and seek him with all of your heart. God desires you.
Be Faithful--Walk in Light
The next thing in building a healthy and loving relationship with God
is remaining faithful to him. He expects you to henceforth live a holy and
righteous life. (See Hebrews 12:14) He expects you to walk in the Light.
(See 1 John 1:7) Now God knows that you will stumble, but he expects you,
when you stumble, to get up, repent, and get back on the path.
Now you say, "Who can live holy and righteous before God?" Well
you, for one, if you really want to, but not by your own power can you do
it. It is God who gives you the power to live a holy and righteous life.
Speaking of what Jesus would do...
Luke 1:74-75
...to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve
him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (NIV)
Be God's Love Partner
Is this required, this living a holy and righteous life? Yes. If you want
to be God's friend, then you must live up to his standards, for it is certain
that he will not lower his to please you.God is good, and loving, and kind.
He is patient, and gentle. His desire is for you to come and love him. To
be a love partner with him. His desire is to embrace you, and give you all
things. But he is holy and pure and no vile thing can stand in his presence.
His desire is for you to want goodness, mercy, love, and peace, enough
that you will leave the world behind, and seek to be conformed into his
image and likeness. And this can only come about, if you repent of your
past rebellion, and seek to know, and determine to be like him, through
frequent reading of the Scriptures. It is impossible to know God apart from
the Scriptures. Honest and true Bible teachers can vastly speed up this
process, but you must, with all of your heart, be trying to know Jesus Christ,
and to live like him.
To Know Christ is to Live Like Him
1 John 2:3-6
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The
man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands
is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word,
God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in
him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (NIV)
Jesus Christ must be your role model. Nothing less is acceptable. I know
there are a lot of people out there telling people that if you confess that
Jesus Christ is your Lord, you shall be saved. They have that "sinners
prayer" all written down, but the truth is that you must love God.
If you have repented, and have sought to know Jesus Christ, and have come
to love him, then you will turn your life, freely, over to him, and you
will gladly submit to him as Lord, and then your confession of "Jesus
is Lord" will be made in truth, and not be merely words from your mouth.
Jesus is your Role Model
When you read the Bible taking note of the person of Jesus Christ--watching
him, listening to him, with the intent to be like him, you will be changed
in your inner self, by the power of God. You can't really make yourself
grow or understand. The power comes from God. What you do is wash yourself
daily in the Word, and seek, and ask, and knock, and as you associate with
God, in the Scriptures, God reveals himself to you.
Spiritual Growth is Invisible to You
Mark 4:26-29
He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters
seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the
seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the
soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel
in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it,
because the harvest has come. (NIV)
Notice in this parable that the man scatters the seed on the ground, that
is, he reads the Bible and it's words are then planted in his heart, and
the planted seeds grow, but not by his power. Growth in God's Kingdom is
the same. We read the Scriptures, and place ourselves in Jesus' place, and
say to ourselves, "What would Jesus do if he were me?" and then
we do what the Spirit guides us into. When we allow God's Word to work in
us in this way, it becomes alive in us, and has the power to transform us.
The Bible is God made Visible
The Bible is not a rule book. It is a living and active manifestation
of God himself, if mixed with faith. As I trust in God, he works in me to
conform me into his kind of person. When I trust in God and allow love to
motivate me, then I come to understand and know God.
Aspire to be Like God
My dear reader, consider carefully how you consider these words of mine.
Pray and ask God if pleasing him is better for you than anything else you
can aspire to. Pray and ask God if personal daily time in his Word is important.
Pray and ask God to reveal his true self to you. Then aspire to be like
God, to be his friend, to be pleasing in his sight. Aspire to be loving
and kind and gentle and patient and at peace--like God.
Jeremiah 9:23-24
This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his
wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of
his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands
and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness
on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD. (NIV)