God Inspired Purpose of Scripture!

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17 NIV)

What I have found amazing in the past few days is the number of people who claim not to believe “in an ancient book of myths written by men” but will use it, “cherry-picking” to support and condone their stance in opposition to God’s Word. Now, think about it–isn’t that just like Satan to try to use God’s Word to convince Jesus to act in opposition to God’s Word?

The same God, who inspired men to write down the words they heard God speak to their hearts, is the same God is who is yet inspiring people to write today. That “ancient book of myths” has held its own for centuries and will still be used as a guide by the remnant that God promises to save to Himself.

I don’t have a problem with people not believing the bible because at one time, I had challenged those who believed in it. However, when my relationship with God changed, allowing me to hear Him speak to me, I understood and accepted the love He has for me–a love so great–that He inspired men to write down how He wanted me to live. Notice, the personalization of what I’m saying with the use of the pronoun–I. Being in relationship with God is an individual, personal, choice. If no one else ever understands this, I’ll stand on God’s Word alone.

You see, many unbelievers are now trying to quote the Bible. “Jesus just said, love.”  “God said don’t judge.” And one woman yesterday tried to make a case for her condoning sin by saying, “Adam and Eve were not married and had children out of wedlock.” She didn’t understand that God performed the first marriage and had she continued reading Genesis, she would have known God’s definition of marriage. I really wanted to respond, but Holy Spirit wouldn’t allow me to do so. For the Word also says, “For them that be ignorant, let them be ignorant.” Marriage did not come after Christianity; marriage was established in the Garden with the creation of mankind. Too many people confuse religious concepts with Christianity to the point they want to negate all God did in the beginning. Understanding can only come through reading and opening one’s heart to hear God explain Himself.

In the passage of Scripture used as a foundation for my blog today, Paul reminds Timothy that “all” (nothing left out of all) Scripture is God-breathed or inspired. Therefore, we should not get overly indignant when people don’t understand and only select the passages they want to use. The fact that they use Scripture at all, puts them into greater risk of being judged by God since they chose to misuse it for ungodly purposes. If a person claims they don’t believe in the Bible, they shouldn’t try quoting it when they have no idea what it means when comprehension of it is only achieved by understanding the “totality” of The Word, not bits and pieces.

I don’t have a problem with people who claim they don’t believe in God. Their very confession of unbelief is a contradiction to their behavior since they generally spend an inordinate amount of time talking about a God they don’t believe in to convince those who do believe that we’re foolish. Well, the Bible states, “the fool has said in his heart, there is no God.” Since I am not a fool and know right well that–GOD exists–their unbelief won’t hinder my relationship with God.

When I agree with God, I confirm on a daily basis that my relationship with Him is intact and I have not conformed to the world’s perception and beliefs of anything that contradict Him, but I have been transformed by the renewing of my mind in Christ Jesus. I have the mind of Christ–discovered in God’s Word–and use God’s Word to teach, rebuke, correct and train others to know how to respond to the enemy’s attacks. I am thoroughly equipped to accomplish every good work assigned to me. No matter what the government does, the Supreme Court does or anyone else does or say, I will agree with God in all things and in the end, when I stand before Him, I will have no shame about the things I’ve done and I can expect to hear, “Well done, daughter!”

Advertisement

Walking to Crawling!

“Then the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live.” (Genesis 3:14 NLT)

The curses that fell upon the serpent for manipulating the woman–Eve!

The chain reaction to obedience can be devastating for a number of people–people who often experience the effects of what others have done. This is what happened to the “snake” who dared to interfere with God’s plan for mankind.

Back-tracking a bit–Adam did nothing to help his own case in the disobedience by blaming God for giving him the woman in the first place. And then Eve–who shouldn’t have listened to the serpent in the first place, blamed the serpent rather than accepting responsibility for her role in the fiasco. The serpent “Satan” in disguise had absolutely nothing to say because he knew what he was doing and had succeeded. Now, he had to deal with the consequences of his behavior–this is something he had not considered–what happens to him when he’s found guilty!

Because of what God said to the serpent, we can infer that before the curse–he (the serpent) was walking upright–standing tall among all the other animals. In this state–walking, standing tall–he probably felt superior to some of the other animals as well. Again, this is inference on my part based upon what was said, “more cursed than all the animals, domestic and wild.”

Imagine that! Feelings of superiority and hatred for God has created leading to a fall–from being on top of the world to crawling on one’s belly, trying to avoid being wiped out by those who now stand over you.

We have seen examples of Satan’s influence in the lives of many that are a matter of public record–those who thought they were superior to others and acted out of hatred and that feeling of superior–most of them are no longer with us–having receive their just reward for their actions. The first person who comes to mind is Hitler, and now we can see what is happening to others in their quest to reign over all mankind. “The wages of sin is death.”

There are others–who because of their feelings of superiority–who will find themselves crawling on their bellies, trying to avoid being wiped out by those they attempted to destroy. God is–the same today as He was yesterday, and will be tomorrow-intolerant of disobedience to Him when people try to destroy His plans for mankind.

But just like He did not destroy the serpent (and He could have), He chose to leave the serpent to suffer the consequences of his actions for all generations. God’s Word is true–mankind (men and women) who might fear snakes, have no fear in killing them.

Amazing! When God could have destroyed His creation (the serpent), He didn’t and would have been justified in doing so. Now, if God didn’t destroy the serpent who caused all the uproar in the Garden of Eden, why are people so willing to think that God destroys people? People make choices and their choices will either bring about a positive consequence or a negative one. It is our choice.

Listen to The Lord and obey always and don’t worry about going from walking to crawling for all the world to see!