Your Guide?

When we were children, it seemed that there was a rule for everything we did:

• “Don’t chew food with your mouth open.”
• “You have to share that with your sister/brother/friend/person.”
• “Cover your mouth when you cough.”
• “Don’t talk to me with that tone of voice.”
• “Go wash your hands.” And, my favorite,
• “If you keep making that face, it will freeze like that.”

As we grew older, we looked forward to the day when we didn't have to follow rules. Boy, did we get stung on that one. Every aspect of life has rules or guidelines. Boy Scouts have a handbook on how to be a Boy Scout. Traffic laws tell us how to drive. There are rules of conduct in your work place. We are in constant touch with guidelines that deal with how to live various aspects of our lives. To what extent these rules affect us depends entirely on how we view them.

The way you see things, the way you think things through, and the actions you take on a set of circumstances is all predicated on who you are. Every influence on your life, be it from your parents, teachers, experience, books and formal education, or from any and everything circumstance, determine what makes you who you are. This, in turn, determines how you view the things around you which causes you to act the way you do. However, there are two other parts of you that greatly influence your vision of life, the world, those around you, and how you respond to it all. The Bible calls them the natural man and the spiritual man.

Because of Adam and Eve, we are all born with a sin nature (Romans 3:23, 5:12). We have the capacity to sin without having been taught to sin. It comes natural to us. In our purest and most natural state, we will have a view of circumstances and situations in such a way that the actions we take upon them will be pleasing to us, whether they are right or not. Our responses to circumstances and the decisions we make for those circumstances will be those of a sinner. The primary guiding factor in our life will be us and what we have become. Your acceptance or rejection of Christ was most likely influenced by those that have been around you throughout your life. If you have accepted Christ as savior and claim to follow Him, what influences your thought processes and decision making abilities now?

The answer to the previous question is, quite simply, Jesus Christ, the Word of God. Yes, I called Jesus Christ, the Word of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth.” - John 1:1,14.¹ The two verses very clearly state that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but that he is God and he is the living son of God. Psalms 33:6 tells us , “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” You and I were made by the Word of God. Jesus Christ is the Creator, the Son of God, and the Word of God.

Now that we have established that Christ is the Word of God Incarnate (made flesh; in human form), let's see how that pertains to the written Word of God. The first part of 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” 2 Peter 1:21 continues with “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Whoa. Every written word of God was written by God. Not physically, but though believing men who were yielded to the Holy Spirit and who wrote as they were so led. Now, what do you do with these two facts: 1) Christ is the Word of God and 2) the written Word of God was given to us by God through the Holy Spirit?

Let's go back and look at all of 2 Timothy 3:16 and verse 17, “All Scripture is breathed by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. “ Psalms 119:105 declares, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Deuteronomy 8:3 and Matthew 4:4 reminds us that we do not live by bread alone (or in the flesh alone) but “every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Our focus, our vision, our purpose, our guidelines, and the very essence of us living as a born again child of God is to come from the Bible, the Holy Scriptures, the written Word of God. What we read and learn there dictates how we view circumstances and how we respond to them. The Word of God is the final authority in everything because it is God. This is has to be the foundation of every aspect of living for those who have come to Christ by grace alone through faith alone. Need more? Read Psalms 1.

¹Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.