Wrestling With Reasoning

She knows she’s only supposed to eat at the table. 

I walked into the kitchen and saw my youngest daughter eating on the couch. I said, “You know you’re only supposed to eat at the table.” And she replied, “I know Momma, but this bag is like my table.” She knows what the rules are, but she reasoned within herself why it was okay to break them. In her mind, she wasn’t really breaking the rules, she was just reinterpreting them based on her own desires. And we often do that very same thing with God. 

We know what the rules are, but we reinterpret them to appease our conscience, rather than allow our flesh to be crucified by submitting to the wisdom and will of God. I am able to describe this human tendency with such accuracy, because I have been guilty of it myself. I have intimate knowledge of “reasoning away” my sin— of justifying my desires by pursuing a God of my own perceptions, rather than facing the reality of the God Who is. 

I once heard someone say, “God isn’t necessarily saving us from hell, He’s saving us from Himself.” And when I heard that, I remember marveling at how true it is. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that “there is no creature hidden from Him, but all things are uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him Who is our reckoning” (Heb 4:13). And beloved, our reckoning “is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). 

The truth is, there is no wiggle-room with God— just an immovable wall of fire that we must all pass through, for better or for worse. 

(Deut 4:23,24) Be careful that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God that He made with you; do not make an idol for yourselves in the form of anything He has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

(Is 66:14-16) …the hand of the LORD will be revealed to His servants, but His wrath will be shown to His enemies. For behold, the LORD will come with fire—His chariots are like a whirlwind—to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword, the LORD will execute judgment on all flesh, and many will be slain by the LORD.

(Is 10:17,18) The Light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn and consume his thorns and his briers. The splendor of its forests and orchards, both soul and body, it will completely destroy, as a sickness consumes a man.