Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “End Time Deceptions”. A good lesson on popular misconceptions that are Biblically untenable. I hope reviewing these and the accompanying scriptural support has been most helpful. This is a scary time, when “the tendency (is)… to replace the authority of the Written Word of God with one’s own subjective experiences. (But) this time of subjective religion does not provide a safeguard against any deception, especially end-time ones” (Quarterly for Sunday, December 4). So true. It is one of the reasons we are Seventh-Day Adventists. Who hold to the “Written Word”.
However, one of the great dangers of holding-to the “Written Word” is that we can become Pharisees. It is one of the pivotal lessons of the Incarnation of Jesus. That those who hold so punctiliously to God’s “Written Word” can become envious, hateful and murderous to God’s only begotten Son, the “Word made flesh” (John 1:14). And by hating the “Living Word” we are not even holding-to the “Written Word”. We are guilty of wrongly interpreting both “Words”. We don’t really obey, don’t have faith, don’t believe, nor love… even as we erroneously “believe” that we are “keeping” the “Written Word”. Almost an oxymoron. As you strive to obey the “Written Word” you move farther and farther away from the “Living Word”???
Christ came to demonstrate the truth about God. And thus, the truth about ourselves, too. So, if in our ignorance of the Father we think sin is sin because it angers the Father… and that He is obliged to kill us because of it. Then we never ever really get close to Him, nor love Him, nor follow Him, nor have faith in Him. And any so-called “obedience” is really compliance. Even as we advance in so-called “holiness”, we are actually erecting a self-righteous wall around ourselves. Descending deeper and deeper into our own “hell” of self-righteousness.
“We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death” (1 John 3:14). This is how you will know if you have passed from death to life. Do you love? Do you love others more than self? Compliance to the “Written Word” is not obedience. And is surely not “Love”. True obedience and love only comes from an intimate relationship with Him who is Love. A relationship that leads you to truly love and truly obey.
“Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him” (1 John 3: 18-19). This is true righteousness, true faith, true obedience. “True obedience is the outworking of a principle within. It springs from the love of righteousness, the love of the law of God. The essence of all righteousness is loyalty to our Redeemer. This will lead us to do right because it is right--because right doing is pleasing to God” (Christ’s Object Lessons pg. 97).
“Obedience” per-say or even “Faith” so-called, has never been enough. As always, it is about your motive. The reason behind it all. And such it is, from our very loving… and reasonable… God.
With brotherly love,
Jim