A Suicidal Date With Delusion
Back to The Spiritual Essentials
We all have the tendency to explore the Bible, not so much to find the mind of God as to find proof texts of what we have already decided to be the answer. Far too often I come to an understanding through reading portions of the Bible and from then on I lose objectivity. No longer am I without bias and humbly open to whatever my Lord may reveal. Instead, I absorb Scripture through the filter of what might be a too hastily reached conclusion. Although barely aware of what I am doing, my mind is probably trying to make the rest of the Bible conform to my own belief, rather than honestly yielding to the full teaching of the Bible and letting Scripture shape my belief.
We all tend to develop a theory, or a preference, or are handed a doctrine by someone we rightly respect. From then on – often without realizing it – we end up wrestling Scripture into submission, making it confirm our theory, rather than passively submitting to the Bible, freely allowing it to modify our theory.
Unless we resist the urge to use the Bible to prove ourselves right, we will most likely end up – while barely aware of what is happening – twisting Scripture to suit our own purposes. To do so is to open the door to delusion.
It has rightly been said that the Scriptures we most need are the ones we haven’t underlined in our Bibles. They are the parts most likely to kill our theories and threaten our narrow thinking.
Our motive in searching the Scriptures should always be to boldly find God’s truth, no matter how much that truth clashes with our hopes, fears and presumptions.
Since we all have blind spots that we are quite unaware of, we need to keep praying for an openness to any revelation that is truly from God that we might unknowingly reject because it “does not compute,” as it is incompatible with our current mindset. It is essential that we maintain a humble dependence upon the Holy Spirit’s illumination. We desperately need the grace of God to avoid reading his Word through glasses coloured by our expectations, or pride in our human ability to interpret Scripture, or a longing for a soft life.
We must delve not just into God’s writings, but into God’s heart. The Lord himself – not our interpretation of experience, nor our human interpretation of Scripture – must be our authority.