The second part of God’s goal in communicating to us is that we may be conformed to the truth. How is God going to conform us to His image? By revealing the truth of His likeness.
How we react to Him will determine our success in conforming to His truth. We can first refuse to be pushed into God’s mold or secondly we can yield to Him and be fashioned into His likeness.
We are to listen in order to comprehend and to comprehend in order to be shaped and conformed to His truth. God never speaks in order to entertain us. When He speaks He speaks that we may be made like Jesus.
Look at how James explained this in James 1:23-24
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;
24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
We are not simply to hear but also to obey. Not simply to glance at the Word but also to grasp the Word. We are either in the process of resisting God’s truth or in the process of being shaped and molded by His truth
I heard a story once about a twenty-five-year-old young father who was given a traffic ticket for not having his toddler secured in a car seat.
The young father grumbled about the ticket and fastened his son into the appropriate restraint. The ticket was begrudgingly stuffed in the glove compartment.
Nineteen minutes later, he and his young son were involved in an accident. The little toddler sustained a few minor injuries but was protected by the restraints of his car seat. Unfortunately, the father was killed. Although he heeded the warning to fasten his son's seat belt, he never buckled his own.
To paraphrase James:
"For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who . . . died in a car wreck after a warning about seat belts.
Today there are so many things going on that may cause us to question and ask is that something I should do. Now the question may not be what we should do but rather what we want to do.
I think one of the most amusing, at least for me, is when someone says “the experts say”. Who are these experts? What makes them experts? Are they the only one who has it right?
We are all wearing a mask. We are told we have to in order to slow the spread of Covid-19. The experts say we have to but then there are other experts who say no that is not true. Now, this is not a referendum on face mask but it makes the case that there is always going to disagreement as to what is right.
That is true in life but it is not true relating to God or His Word. He and His Word are always right. The ultimate expert and the one we should look to daily to know what to do.
Next week we will consider the third objective God has in speaking and that is that we may communicate His truth.
A thought to ponder,
Elbert Nasworthy
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