Jesus Christ is the Son of YHWH God and He is also YHWH God in the flesh. Jesus is fully God and fully man, He was crucified as the propitiation for the sins of mankind, He died and rose again, conquering sin and death once and for all, and He is the only way to salvation. Any religion that denies these eternal facts cannot be supported or encouraged by Christians who are commanded to “Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not, shall be condemned.” (Mark 16:15,16) and “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19,20).
I will never forget when, in my mid-twenties, I came
face-to-face with the reality of the exclusivity of the path to eternal
salvation in Christ. Although,
throughout my college years I would readily acknowledge my Christian faith, I
fell into the same seductive humanistic mindset that so many lukewarm
Christians fall into during their most formative years. My relationship with Christ was shaped by the
ideas, customs, and social behavior of society, rather than scripture. My Christian faith was based on humanism and subjective
personal experience, rather than Who God has revealed Himself to be in
scripture. Because my faith was based on
subjective experience and cultural influence, I had built my house on shifting
sand: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is
like a wise man who built his house on the rock…But everyone who hears these
words of Mine and does not act on them is like a foolish man who built his
house on sand.” (Matt 7:24,26).
The trendy cultural “inclusivity” that was hammered into
me during my late teens and early twenties, crashed head-on into the
exclusivity of Jesus’ claim that, “I am
the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
Me.” (John 14:6). It was one of the
many forks-in-the-road I have encountered in my walk of faith, times when I
reached certain milestones in which I could choose my own reasoning, over the
truth of God’s word and the leading of the Holy Spirit. At that time, my personal experience and
reasoning posited that God transcended all religion, including Christianity,
and could not be defined by any one religious structure, but rather, it was our
myriad of religious structures and experiences that altogether led to the one,
true God. The humanism and cultural
inclusivity that was so seductively appealing to my intellect, dictated that
God is all-loving and all-merciful, therefore surely, He will not turn away
anyone who seeks Him, no matter what path they're on. Besides, I reasoned, we
have His assurance: "Knock, and the
door shall be opened unto you." (Matt 7:7). A brilliant intellectualization of my
subjective spiritual experience, if I do say so myself. But it’s total garbage. It may be a convincing argument for those who
know just enough scripture to recognize it as scripture, but not enough to be
transformed by it.
Lest we forget, Satan manipulated God’s words to deceive
Eve. A few verses down from "Knock, and the door shall be opened..." at Matthew 7:7,
Jesus also says, “Enter
through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads
to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life,
and there are few who find it.” (v. 13,14). At John 10:9, Jesus plainly tells us that He
is the gate. And yes, scripture says
that if we knock, the door shall be opened, but Jesus plainly tells us that He
is the One standing on the other side of it (Rev 3:20).
It grieves me to see so many who are well-intended toward
the Christian faith, fall into the trap of vanity by consuming the bait of over-intellectualizing
their spirituality, as Paul warns: “I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was
deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may be led astray from your
simple and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus
other than the One we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the
One you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up
with it way too easily.” (2 Cor 11:3,4).
Which is not to say that we are to neglect our
intellectual reasoning, but rather, we are to have it fully submitted to Christ, “We tear down arguments, and every
presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every
thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor 10:5). We subject our intellect to obedience in
Christ because Satan appeals to our intellect and reasoning, and without the
authority of Christ over our mind, we do not stand a chance against our eternal
enemy. Satan seeks to entice and deceive
us through our intellect and reasoning, while God seeks to set us free through
our childlike faith and surrender. So
many have condemned Eve for her disastrous choice in the Garden to pursue her
own reasoning, over her faithful trust in God, all the while not realizing that
we make the same choice over and over in our own lives.
True brilliance is the humility to admit that we are but
dust and true wisdom is the meek surrender to God’s revelation to us through
scripture.
“Blessed
are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt 5:5)
“The fear of the
LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
(Prov 9:10)
“And to man He
said, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is
understanding.'" (Job 28:28)
“The fear of the
LORD is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His
commandments; His praise endures forever.” (Psalm 111:10)
“But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is
endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body. The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His
commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For
God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is
good or evil.” (Eccl 12:12-14)
"Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built." (Luke 6:47,48)
No comments:
Post a Comment