Dangerous minds

New thoughts vs. old truth

Recently I was in a christian bookstore searching for a new bible for my daughter. As always I started getting a little vexed the longer I was in there. I don't know, there is just something about those stores that doesn't feel right. Maybe it's the spin that the marketers put on the gospel that's so repulsive or the "new" thoughts on God people are trying to sell.

I like the NKJ version so we were looking for one appropriate for her. Well there was basically one shelf of bibles to choose from with very little variety. The NIV and other paraphrased versions however were on many shelves with all sorts of different kinds.

It's alarming how the most popular bibles and books are the ones with the most human influence and opinion. This got me thinking of how dangerous our own thoughts about God can be if they don't line up with the word.

Years ago I was speaking at a meeting and right before I got up to speak the worship leader said "I really feel like God is saying "this is the year our dreams are gonna come true"

Well the word I was bringing that night was basically this is the year we need to say "not my will but yours be done". I'm pretty sure mine was the right word because I was preaching the bible that night.

Truth is powerful but the more watered down it is, the less power it has to change lives. The gospel is powerful but the more we mix in our own thoughts and ideas the less affect it seems to have.

I remember years ago we were trying to help a young single mom. She had many problems and was mentally and spiritually very unstable. As we tried to help her she never seemed to make any progress, this went on for months. After a while she decided to move across the country to live with a relative, their church was more of a "tough love type of church" They radically preached truth and didn't apologize for it.

I talked to her on the phone months later and she was a different person. She was on fire, evidently they hadn't used the mushy enabling love that we were trying to help her with, they challenged her, didn't stroke her self pity and had her out on every outreach. This had an amazing effect on her life, they simply turned the gospel loose on her and let God do the rest.

God's thoughts are not our thoughts nor our ways his ways let's be careful we don't try to improve the gospel or re- interpret it in our attempt to help, we may be doing more harm than good!

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