Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Integrity (04/11/24)
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TITLE: The Truth And Nothing But The Truth | Previous Challenge Entry
By Doug Laird
04/14/24 -
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In Matthew 7: 24-27 we see both the blessings associated with obedience, and the consequences associated with disobedience, to this command.
The discipline and sacrifice it takes to build, refine, maintain, and apply an edified soul structure is not a burden for an advancing disciple. It is a reciprocal act of love (1).
The blessing for obedience to the 2Pet. 3: 18 command, is to not to just have “AN” answer, but to have “THE” answer to our problems BEFORE the inevitable storms of life strike.
An edified soul structure of an advancing disciple is where “THE” answers are stored away.
There is a world of a difference between having “AN” answer, and having “THE” answer to our questions and problems.
“There is a way (human viewpoint) which seems right to a person, But its end is the way of death (destruction) (Prov.14: 12 NASB2020 parentheses mine).”
The consequences for our disobedience to the 2Pet. 3: 18 command is to find ourselves in situations and circumstances in which we do not have the right answers to problems that come our way.
When we find ourselves without any answers at all, we cry out to God, asking Him where He, and His answers, are.
Not wanting to add insult to injury, He often responds by silence.
But what He could do, would be to respond by asking us, “Where were YOU when I was providing the answers that you now need?”
Some of us do a pretty good job of building an edified soul structure by gathering together and having personal devotional times for the teaching of, or meditating on, the Word of God.
But unless we are willing to apply what we have been taught, to what we think, say, and do, we are only deceiving ourselves (2).
Spiritual strength and endurance comes from the ongoing, but s-l-o-w moving, process along the road to spiritual maturity.
Each hurdle along the way will be higher than the one before.
The level of adversity we overcome today, trains and prepares us for the higher hurdles of tomorrow!
When facing hurdles that appear to be insurmountable, we cry out to God, pleading for the strength to endure, or the means to overcome.
Again, God may choose to respond by silence, but He could respond by pointing out that we already have been given the strength to endure, or that if and when it is His will to do so, we will be given the means to either escape or overcome.
Sometimes the higher hurdles are there to teach or remind us of our dependency on Him, and the inadequacy of our human resources.
The silence of God is not “unanswered” prayer. Every prayer is immediately answered with a yes, no, or not right now response. The yes or no answers settles the matter, whereas the not right now responses is a test of our faith as we wait upon the Lord.
God allows us to face bewildering situations to teach or remind us that we must prepare ourselves, by having the answers BEFORE we need them (3).
What we don’t learn through such preparation, we will be taught through experience.
Until we seek and apply the right answers, we will find ourselves facing the same type of problems over and over again.
Some problems may never stop reoccurring, but what can improve, is our ability to handle them.
This is what brings us our victory, and God His glory.
One can not draw or share the right answers from an empty or misinformed soul structure.
It is the amount and the accuracy of the Bible doctrine (or lack of it) in one’s soul structure that determines its integrity.
“A little leaven (false information) leavens the whole lump of dough (Gal. 5: 9 NASB2020 parentheses mine).”
Building, refining, maintaining, and applying an edified soul structure founded on the Word of God (4), is an ongoing, slow-moving, never-ending, process.
As the old adage recorded in John Heywood’s 1546 collection of proverbs says, there is no fool like an old fool.
There is no one to be pitied more than a professing Christian who thinks he or she knows it all, but lives like the devil, having to learn the lessons of discipleship through repeated cycles of adverse experiences.
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(1) 1John 4: 19/1John 5: 3 (2) James 1: 22 (3) Matt. 7: 24-27 (4) Heb. 4: 12
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