Forsaking Doctrine to Stand for Truth

When it comes to religion there are few things that we fight over more than doctrine. A thousand years ago Christians died for their doctrine while today Christians kill for their doctrine. I’m interested in being right! I don’t want to live my life in error but I can’t ditch Bible principle for Bible principle. All the doctrines of the scripture are pieces that make up the whole puzzle but often times we pick and choose pieces that we like while throwing away other essential pieces in order to beat our brothers to the finish line. There is a key doctrine that all doctrine hinges on and it makes most Christian’s skin crawl to even talk about it. It’s the doctrine of love!

 

Have you ever dreamed of sitting down with Jesus and asking Him what the most important commandment in the Bible was? Or maybe even the most important, top two? Well, somebody beat you to it and here is the answer Jesus Christ our Lord gave. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” See, and you thought I was kidding when I said all doctrine hinged on it. You have it right out of the mouth of Christ that loving God with EVERYTHING you are and loving your neighbor with the same tender care, admiration and regard as you have for your own self is the key to all of the Bible’s principles! Can you just imagine sitting down with Jesus and saying, “Lord, that guy I used to hang out with turned out to be a compromiser but I sure showed him! I don’t even call and talk to him any more!” Boy, we are really standing aren’t we…

 

I Corinthians 13:1-3 (KJV) “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”

 

My, how those words sting! Do you ever wonder why, even though you walk a straight line, live a sacrificial life, dedicate all your free time to service and study and prayer, and are faithful to church every time the doors are open, that you still haven’t found that “rest” and “peace” and “joy” that the scriptures speak so flagrantly of? Sometimes I think we’ve gotten so bent on STANDING that we’ve forgotten how to walk! We wonder why we can’t get people interested in coming to church with us and why, when they do come, they race to their cars after service and it’s because people can tell the difference between someone loving them and someone trying to “fix” them. God help our wicked arrogance!

 

I Corinthians 13:4-8 (KJV) “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth…”

 

It’s difficult to convince the world that we are a people whose entire existence revolves around a rebirth through love and forgiveness when those are the two commodities we dispense to others in such stingy portions. Oh, sure, we love our church family, that is, until they say something we don’t agree with or do something to hurt us. We love that church down the street from us but they’ve got so many problems that we don’t even bother praying for them, in fact, we are happy at how they are failing! We love our lost family members but they are just so wicked that we can’t go around them. We love those people who have left our church but we are just sure they missed God’s will and don’t mind discussing it since they aren’t around to hear us. We love those backslid Christians that fell by the way so much that we just can’t wait for them to encounter God’s judgment so we can say “I told you so!” We love those people that did us wrong but that doesn’t mean we have to smile or wave when we pass them in town! I mean, after all, God understands how wronged we are and, besides, we’d be compromising if we reached out to those sorry rascals! Like little children anticipating Christmas, we can’t wait for judgment day in Heaven so everyone can see how wrong they were and how right we were!

 

Oh, we are straight as an arrow, alright, but we are stuck fast in a dead tree a long ways off from the mark God aimed us at. If we had just half of the discernment we claimed to have we would KNOW how much all those people around us needed to be loved. When Jesus spoke He preached doctrine! He was a Man of doctrine because He is the God of doctrine! Ever wonder why the Bible tells us that they were “astonished” by His doctrine? My guess is that because while they were living in a culture driven by bondage, oppression and crooked religious hierarchy Jesus was teaching “For God so LOVED the world that He GAVE…” Funny how loving and reaching out are inseparable. God help us not to forget love. God help us not to forsake doctrine. We can stand without love but not for very long...

 

I Corinthians 10:12 (KJV) "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

 

Unrighteous Holiness

If I were to just ask the average man what he had to do in order to be a God pleasing Christian I imagine a list would begin of all sorts of do's and don't's. The common myth seems to be that we are in charge of our own righteousness but there's a tremendous amount of fallacy in that line of thinking.

 Isaiah 64:6-7 (KJV) "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. [7] And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities."

 Even since Old Testament times man's attempts to accomplish righteousness hasn't gained much respect from God. What's the key, then?

 Hebrews 11:6 (KJV) "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

 Faith. How many Pharisees lived empty, routine lives, modelled after men in the supposed name of God, entirely without faith. Once we locate a Spirit filled, God believing man we take on his lifestyle in hopes of attaining his favor with God. How does he preach? How does his wife dress? What version of the Bible does he use? Which places does he frequent? Which places does he avoid? Pretty soon we've got ourselves a pretty, little, religious life built on a lot of effort and not an ounce of faith!

 Galatians 5:6 (KJV) "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love."

 This word "circumcision" represents the law but you can throw any conviction you have into this formula. Whether you drink beer or don't drink beer, whether you dress sleazy or modestly, whether you listen to country music or not does not avail you any thing in the eyes of God! No, only "faith which worketh by love." Did you see that? My faith in God and my love for God is going to drive me to make intentional decisions about how I live my life but the lifestyle itself is not what makes me a successful Christian! I can live a clean, separated lifestyle and be a hell bound fake or a self worshipping Pharisee but my faith in God will make me a real Christian!

 Hebrews 11:1 (KJV) "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

 Every bit of fruit my life could ever bear, every single life I could ever hope to impact, every single soul I could potentially ever see saved...substance...evidence...proofs, these are, of where my heart lies. A religious lifestyle void of faith is the biggest threat to the cause of Christ! We will spend a life like that hurting people and laying waste to real opportunity while a separated, sold out, life of faith will make every person it comes in contact with hungry for more! Paul listed off all of his credentials in Philippians chapter three as he described how blameless he was by the law's standard, how educated he was in religion and how respectable he was in the brethren's eyes but what did it gain him? Hear his words...

 Philippians 3:8-10 (KJV) "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, [9] And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: [10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;"

 Do you know why most of us live depraved Christian lives filled with insecurity and secret sin? Do you know why every little storm knocks us off of our feet? Do you know why we have to busy ourselves with vain, religious, busy work in order to feel like we are even worth anything???

 Ephesians 6:16a (KJV) "Above all, taking the shield of faith..."

 We are supposed to be wearing armor and the key to the whole suit is the shield! Faith! What kind of Christian life are you living? Are you a powerless imitator of religious exercise or are you a humble, child of faith?  

Why I Quit Judging People

I used to hate it when people would quote Matthew 7:1 at me but that's because deep down inside I was convicted by those provoking words. I thought I had arrived in my Christian walk and was very pleased with my career as a critic of all who didn't measure up. It's amazing how faithful God is to His promises, though. Sure enough, it happened. God's love set the stage for me to be judged as I had judged others and it turned out to be one of the most liberating experiences of my entire life. God broke me with the perspective He gave me and it set me free!

Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV) "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

I had never pinned the words of Jeremiah on my own life before but as I watched people who were dear to me tear me down and throw me away I realized that the picture they were painting was of ME! That was precisely who I had been for the past ten years of my life: righteous in my own eyes but deceived by my own heart! As I began reading the Bible with a humbled heart instead of filtering the Bible with my preconceived notions I found that it was ME who didn't measure up. Sure, I had all my religious ducks in a row, I had all the right stands and convictions, I was even pleasing in the eyes of those around me but my works were fighting God for His deity! God wasn't nearly as impressed with me as I was! Paul closed out the first chapter of Romans with a pretty nasty list of sins as he described those who live life for the flesh. The list included everything from fornication, malice, debate and envy to covetousness, deciet and haters of God. As we read through this extensive list our minds wander to those we know who live out of control with these issues. Before you know it we are beating our chest in the temple court thanking God we aren't like those people only to be slapped in the face with the opening lines of chapter two...

Romans 2:1-3 (KJV) "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. [2] But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. [3] And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?"

As those critical scales fall from our eyes we can shift back to that list of sins at the end of chapter one and, rather than think about the worst of the worst, we will find where most all of them still exist in our hearts today! As I realized how weak I really am to sin and it's grasp, how unstable I am without God's daily mercy, how deceived I was keeping myself to my own current nature and how little I really knew about my fellow man I laid my Pharisaical garments aside, I repented to God for how I'd tried to do His job and I apologized publicly and personally to those I knew I had hurt.

Romans 2:11 (KJV) "For there is no respect of persons with God."

The word person here comes from a Greek word that literally means "a mask that you wear." Our reputations with people are very easy to manipulate with all sorts of facades that we put on. We shield our hurt with humor, hide behind our pride, take on attributes in order to fit in, shade the truth in order to make our character more digestible and all of that combines to make up our "person" but God doesn't buy that version of me. While I'm calling out my brothers and sisters for how they dress, what they post on Facebook, what they've done in the past and where they go to church God knows all the "little" sins I'm hiding. He saw me snap at my wife, act selfish towards my children, sleep my prayer time away, lust when nobody was looking, live arrogantly toward those behind me....and, oh, how the list could go on. Paul assured us in verses thirty-three and thirty-four of Romans chapter eight that the only one who could condemn a man is Christ and that was after he had already promised us in verse one of the same chapter that Christ wasn't condemning anybody who walked after the Spirit! We have liberty from God to walk, stumble, grow, struggle, learn and live but we step way off of our path of safety and give up that liberty when we try to do the job of judging our fellow man. Further more, we apply pressures to the lives of real children of God that is absolutely undue! We apply pressures that may momentarily achieve our carnal, religious goals but wind up frustrating and stunting the real growth in their lives. We have no right or licence to do such things! The world is hurting and desperate for answers but false perfection, critical condemnation and self righteousness is hurting the cause. My, how we worry ourselves with the downfalls of others when we don't even really know our own hearts! How arrogant it is for us to be so self satisfied when God is not decieved at all about our current condition! Are you brave enough today to sit down with the book of Romans and ask God with an open heart to let you see as much of yourself as you can handle? What's it going to take to break you of judging others?