Men and women are different when it comes to directions. Men want exact road names and exact number addresses. Women? We’re happy with, “Turn by the weeping willow and it’s the house with the closed-in carport.” Even if I have been there before, Keith does not feel secure if he doesn’t have something more than, “Two roads past the firehouse and the next door neighbors have a yard full of crabgrass.” I always thought it was my vision—I haven’t been able to read street signs in years, forget those numbers on the houses. But no, all my women friends give directions exactly the same way: turn left at the round-about and it’s halfway around the next curve where the honeysuckle blooms on the mailbox. Can we help it if men can’t tell the difference between honeysuckle and plumbago?
Funny how that also describes the difference in people spiritually. Some people want a list. Here, they seem to say, I’ve done this and this and this, so I ought to be all right. Then there are others who go by what “looks right” or “feels right.” I recently heard a young woman who has decided she wants to be a preacher say this: “When I walked into the room, I just felt at peace, so I knew God was saying that was all right.” And this woman wants to preach the gospel?
Just like you need a good balance of exact address and some helpful landmarks when following directions, maybe you need a good balance of exactly what is right and what is wrong plus the common sense to know when something just doesn’t “feel right.” In Galatians 5 Paul ends that list of the lusts of the flesh with, “and such like,” and the fruit of the Spirit with, “against such there is no law.” “Such” means he hasn’t listed every single thing, but if you are honest, you should be able to figure this out for yourselves. It should be obvious to anyone with a normal IQ, he seems to be saying, but here is a list to get you started.
“The Bible doesn’t say it’s wrong,” is an excuse as old as my grandparents at least. I’ve heard it all my life. It’s just an admission that the person doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose, the common sense He expects us to use when we are trying to determine His will.
You can’t check off your service to God as if it were nothing more important than buying groceries and you can’t tell Him it felt good so you fell for it, even if it did violate the plain words of scripture.
God gives us directions that are easy to follow—as long as you want to do His will.
If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood, John 7:17-18.
Dene Ward
Funny how that also describes the difference in people spiritually. Some people want a list. Here, they seem to say, I’ve done this and this and this, so I ought to be all right. Then there are others who go by what “looks right” or “feels right.” I recently heard a young woman who has decided she wants to be a preacher say this: “When I walked into the room, I just felt at peace, so I knew God was saying that was all right.” And this woman wants to preach the gospel?
Just like you need a good balance of exact address and some helpful landmarks when following directions, maybe you need a good balance of exactly what is right and what is wrong plus the common sense to know when something just doesn’t “feel right.” In Galatians 5 Paul ends that list of the lusts of the flesh with, “and such like,” and the fruit of the Spirit with, “against such there is no law.” “Such” means he hasn’t listed every single thing, but if you are honest, you should be able to figure this out for yourselves. It should be obvious to anyone with a normal IQ, he seems to be saying, but here is a list to get you started.
“The Bible doesn’t say it’s wrong,” is an excuse as old as my grandparents at least. I’ve heard it all my life. It’s just an admission that the person doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose, the common sense He expects us to use when we are trying to determine His will.
You can’t check off your service to God as if it were nothing more important than buying groceries and you can’t tell Him it felt good so you fell for it, even if it did violate the plain words of scripture.
God gives us directions that are easy to follow—as long as you want to do His will.
If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood, John 7:17-18.
Dene Ward
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