Be Cautious Not To Tip The Scales In Your
Spiritual Life.
From
the beginning of one's walk with Jesus, the Christian is bombarded with
conflicting messages pulling you to one side of a topic or the other,
usually being told that the other is wrong and to be
avoided.
Personally I have found that there is a balance to be found
when approaching the tenets of Christ.
As you read, keep in mind that I
am not advocating compromise or luke-warm thinking as there is even a
balance to be found with the balance otherwise one may fall into the error
of believing all faiths to be valid or adopt a dualism mindset.
Bible
Interpretation
On one side of the spectrum we have the strict
literalists who take the Bible as being literally true word-for-word,
however it cannot be avoided that there are idioms, metaphors, similies
and symbolic language.
On the other side however there are the liberal
types who spiritualise everything that seems supernatural in order to
'modernise' Christianity, often resorting to making radical changes to the
meaning of the plain text to fit their politically correct
bias.
The solution is simple. It is scriptural and it is common
sense.
God designed and inspired every word of the Bible and warned us
not to tamper with it or try to apporach it with our own limited
understanding. In knowing this we should realise that it is not US who
interprets scripture but scripture which interprets itself...for every
symbolic phrase there is an interpretation elsewhere in scripture, so it
will take the diligent Bible student to learn what is being said.
The
rule should be to take scripture at face value until it is obvious that
symbolism is being used. Fortunately, the basics of the Gospel, the main
and most important thrust of the entire Bible are written in plain and
simple language- Salvation by faith in the death, burial and resurrection
of Christ for our sins.
Logic and Emotion
God is both logical and emotional.
One
cannot be persuasive of just emotional arguement, as it *can* be seen by
others as subjective and not withstanding of logic.
However it does
have it's place..
On the other side of the spectrum, we cannot use pure
logic *solely* as a means to witness as it is cold and unfeeling.
Much
as they would deny it, I have observed that many atheists for example,
state that they seek emperical evidences or proofs for God -just the cold
hard facts..yet almost invariably, emotionalism creeps in with complaints
such as '..then why did God do this....' which makes into an emotional
issue as well.
As being made in His image, *we* also are logical
and emotional and must facilitate both when communicating to others- the
balance must be found..it *may* not be an even balance, and it very well
may have to be fine tuned as long as one lives, but it is neccessary.
God's Love vs
God's Justice.
You cannot separate God's love from His justice-
the two go hand-in-hand, yet there are many liberals whom would claim that
God is love (and love is God) and in being so could not do anything
unpleasant and would not send anyone to hell.
Then we have the
legalists who would have us still adhere strictly to the Old Testamant
law.
Though one could get a more thorough analysis of law vs grace
under the 'Christianity vs Religion' page..there is a distinction here
which I will attempt to address:
Without Love, God would be a cold
and unbending tyrannt who would punish at the slightest infraction of His
perfect standard. (Which unfortunately is the common misconception many
have of God in regards to the Old Testament.)
Without Justice, God
would be no better than us..permissive and too relaxed about sin, not
caring too much what we do to others or Him- thusly making Himself less
than Holy.
Without a standard, anyone could do absoutely anything
they want and get to heaven- cheapening Christs sacrifice...which is the
greatest demonstration of love.
As R.A. Laidlaw once correctly
stated:
"God's love would have forgiven the sinner, but God's
rightousness prevented the forgiveness.
God's rightousness would have
judged the sinner, but God's love restrained the judgement."
As you
can see, it is a mistake to favor one of God's qualities over the
other..you must take Him for who He is, or not at
all.
May our Father
bless and protect you and your family and guide you into all truth by the power
of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name.
The Reason Why