- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
Woe to them! For they have traveled down Cain’s path, and because of greed have abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error; hence, they will certainly perish in Korah’s rebellion. (Jude 1:11)
In their worship of God, Cain, Balaam, and Korah all tried to replace the genuine article with their counterfeit versions.
Cain exchanged offerings approved by God with unsanctioned fruit. Balaam invented a version of God who cursed for hire. Korah decided his approach to God was as good as Moses’s, and his coup of the high priesthood was swallowed into a shortcut to hell.
Inventing God as we imagine him, and worshiping how we choose are reckless lies that reach back to the snake in the garden. The same human pride now prevents some from humbling themselves before Jesus as God’s revealed solution.
As I talk with people around the world about faith, I find an epidemic of those who want to engage the supernatural and end in heaven, but they don’t want to encounter the real God. It’s no surprise because the only path to a holy God takes us through the swamp of our sinfulness, and who wants to wade in that stench?
To avoid the peril of Cain, Balaam, and Korah, I must answer one question—Does my worship originate from human pride, or am I humbly seeking God as he is revealed in the Christian Bible?
Prayer: Jesus, help me genuinely worship the one true God.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me, but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)
When I served in Albania, a small boy couldn’t reach the table from his chair. I slid a thick Bible under the lad to boost him a few inches.
“How dare you use the Word of God to sit on,” a local believer said with a furrowed brow.
I replaced the Bible with a dictionary.
The encounter left me wondering which was more sacred, the paper, ink, and leather of the Bible or the child who sat on it? I recalled that the living word of God, Jesus, allowed children to sit on him.
I don’t want the Bible to become something it is not. It is not a lucky talisman and it is not the target of my adoration. It’s also not meant as a source for bookish knowledge. The Bible is a miracle that the Holy Spirit uses to carry me to Jesus—who is the complete Word of God.
The best way I know to respect Bibles, crosses, angels, and whatever else points to Jesus, is to not worship them. Instead, I will pursue saturation to my core by the person of Jesus Christ. Only there can I find life to the fullest.
Prayer: Jesus, Holy Word of God, consume me.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain their sight, and the ones who see may become blind.” (John 9:39)
For five days running, the vacation Bible school told us about Jesus. The message saturated my eleven-year-old heart and pumped through my veins, right up to my eyes. Things looked different. When the man at the front said come forward if you want Jesus, I went.
The next day, my vision was still changed. My new eyes made me understand things, like why I shouldn’t punch on my sisters.
Time dulled my special sight. During my teenage years I squinted into the dark world. I was going blind again.
At age nineteen, God offered a bailout. I could join an evangelical missionary group in the U.S. Midwest, or I could stay with my druggy friends. It was time to choose.
Maybe I can understand why those who have never seen God’s light might elect blindness, but I had looked into an existence of glory and I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there. I decided to fix my eyes on Jesus.
Life is about choosing what we see. I have to be blind to the temporal or the eternal. If my sights are on material objects, then faith disappears. But when I stare at eternity, the world fades and truth solidifies into the person of Jesus.
Prayer: Exalted One, I choose to see beautiful you.