Remembering..., April 2025
I’ll admit it! I am a scholar and have been for a long time. I was absolutely thrilled when I had homework in 1st grade! It was a coloring assignment. Back then, I wasn’t reading yet. That didn’t happen until 2nd grade and when I really began to understand what I was reading, the dolls and toys went away and I was submerged in books.
So much later, when a Seventh-day Adventist pastor came to visit a room mate of mine to prepare her for baptism, I was intrigued by the very detailed studies he was doing with her. The study about hell was an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper folded in half which made 4 pages of a single-spaced list. It was a very different way of studying the Bible, instead of the usual “I think…”
Nowadays, the only reading I am doing is the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. I also guard who I listen to. I am also quick to do the research on a speaker’s featured author of a book that reveals what may seem to be new material or a “new message.” There are all kinds of things being said, written and done nowadays that need to be compared with the Bible. I have found that more often than not, something is missing, twisted, reinterpreted, or the focus is on a publication written by a questionable author. The standard has always been Isaiah 8:20, “ To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
More often than not, a person’s witness can bring clues about where he or she is in their walk with the Lord. Those who have departed from the faith have shown signs all along. If one is not paying attention, it comes as a surprise. The best physical example of this is the potter’s wheel. If a piece of clay is not in the exact middle of the wheel, it will eventually fall apart. Another was a huge spinning disc that people sat on. If one was in the exact center, they could ride the longest. However, if they were a little off-center in the slightest way, there was slow movement away from center and were off the disc and on the floor. It starts out small and the process of transformation away from truth takes over.
The good news for us is that the cross is there for us to clung to Christ’s merits and victory. The thing most needed is to ask Him to come into our very being and live His life in and through us. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 KJV This will keep us from straying and our eyes will be on Jesus, "the author and finisher of our faith." Hebrews 12:2
In times of distress and confusion, seek the Lord, pray, and study His Word. Give your life and everything else to Him and may the love of Jesus fill your heart and flow out to others. And also, know that you are loved. MB