WHEN I THINK ACCORDING
TO HUMAN REASONING, IT'S JUST TOO HARD TO IMAGINE....
According to my human thinking, it's hard to imagine that people are lost because
they didn't get immersed. But God's thoughts are higher than my thoughts. When
I think according to my flesh, it's too hard to imagine that gossip could send
someone to hell. But I am not God. When I reason according to human relations,
I can't imagine that it matters two hoots if religious people worship with musical
instruments. But men like things God doesn't like. When I think according to
my emotions, I can't imagine that divorce is serious enough that most remarried
people are in ongoing sin. God looks on sin different than man does. When I
think according to the world, I can't accept that most people are going to hell
for eternity. Men don't like the idea of being judged. When I think according
to what the human side likes and wants and feels, I can't imagine that out of
all of the religions, that Jesus is the only right way. God says He alone is
to be worshiped. When I think according to human reasoning, I can't imagine
one sin like eating from a tree could send someone out of the garden of eden.
But God gets to decide what is right and wrong. When I think according to my
flesh, I can't imagine that two priests should be burned up for bring 'strange
fire' into the holy place. When I think according to my own senses, I can't
imagine that a well-meaning priest would be struck dead for trying to stabilize
the ark that was about to tip over. When I think like a carnal man, I can't
imagine why a priest should be killed by a lion because he stopped to eat with
a prophet who lied to him. When I think like a human, many things Jesus says
are too hard to believe. Why should a person carry a cross to go to heaven?
Why should I have to confess my sins and live according to Christ to go to heaven?
Such hard things will be what leads to hell. When we think God's ways are too
hard, we forget that God is holy and knows better than we do.
"7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts:
and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our
God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts." Isaiah 55:7-9
I'm trying to illustrate that God is sovereign and it is not for man to question
His ways. I'm illustrating why I can't think on my own and why I need to think
according to what is right in God's sight.
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and no one will go to heaven apart
from believing it, Jn. 14:6. God is holy and He will punish sin. We must "repent
and return to God" in order to have salvation, Acts 3:19. The reason priests
and prophets and patriarchs (look at that, 3 P's) died for sin is because God
is holy and He does not condone sin. If God says to build the ark of a particular
kind of wood, you should use that wood and no other kind. God has His reasons.
And to do things in some way God has not prescribed, like it or not, you are
not treating God as the Holy God He is. "By those who come near to Me,
I will be treated as Holy.", Lev. 10:3. It is by a sense of reverence and
love that we read the Bible and do things just as God said. That's actually
pretty easy to understand. I love God and His Son, and I want to go to heaven.
So these "hard things" don't trip me up and make me turn away. The
alternative to God and His ways are unthinkably hard.
By Dan Mayfield
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