Monday, December 20, 2010

"Who's Teaching You?"

"Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies." Psalm 27:11

Who better to teach you His ways but the Lord Himself. We run from meeting to meeting seeking out those who will teach us the word of God and often neglect to let Him be our teacher. One of the reasons why we have been blessed with the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives is so that He can teach us, lead us in the truth, reveal Jesus to us and show us God's will. Yet, we seek out "people" to teach us and won't seek His instruction.

Don't misunderstand, the Lord has given us ministers in the body of Christ to help us and teach us. But even so, when we have listened to the teachings of men we still need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us in the truth of the word we have heard. Paul, the greatest apostle to preach the gospel, commended the men of Berea because they listened to his teaching but then went to God's word for themselves to confirm that what Paul taught them was the truth.

We are living in the time that the Bible calls the "last days". We have been warned that in those last days there would arise teachers who would teach false doctrine in order to deceive us. They will preach messages that the people want to hear. They will compromise and water down the gospel. They will preach after their own wisdom and intellect. They will preach messages that appeal to the flesh and neglect the spirit. Am I saying that you can't listen to anyone? No, but I am saying that we can't "believe" and "receive" everything we hear and not check it out for ourselves. There are a lot of true ministers preaching the uncompromised truth of God's word, but at the same time there are those who aren't. We need to know the difference. We are at a time when we don't need to receive everything we hear, every time we hear it, from every person we hear it from. We need to take what we hear (especially when in doubt) before the Lord and ask for the Holy Spirit to show us what is right and what is wrong, what is truth and what isn't.

Have a great day. Is man alone the one who is teaching you God's word or does the Lord teach you by His Spirit also?

For further reading:
John 16:13
1 Peter 2:1-3
Acts 17:10,11
Ephesians 4:11-13
2 Timothy 3

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