Leggo My Ego

I’ve recently been dealing with a lot of new theologies and theories that have been presented to me. I guess it’s a sign of maturity in your faith when you start to see that life is not one big Sunday School class.

I consider myself open, but also very closed off when it comes to my faith. Certain things I will never be shaken on, they are the foundations of my faith, but some things I am open to at least thinking more about and researching and asking questions about.

But lately I’ve been frustrated because, quite frankly, it is annoying at how many differences we have over the Bible. I wonder if God is annoyed, too. But if He is, you’d think He would have written things out more clearly, where there are no grey areas. But come to think of it, I guess He did that with the Law and all those very exact rules written down, AND STILL people couldn’t get it. And now at least we have the Holy Spirit, the one who helps us understand in our faith.

The more I search for knowledge and the more I look outside of just the scriptures to things like commentaries, preachers, and books, the more I see that things aren’t as clear as I wish they were.

The problem I see in much of it, though, and even in Godly men and women, is there is a three letter word America is quite familiar with… “Ego.” I mean it’s amazing the extent of claims people will make just to say, “Look, I’m right!” There’s an old John Reuben lyric that’s always stuck with me, “We could agree to disagree and move on, but humans love proving each other wrong.”

What is man’s obsession with being right? It’s contradictory to itself because the more they want to be right, the farther they move away from Truth. The need to put someone in their place or be the first to figure something out becomes the obsession, taking away the obsession and desire they should have for the Lord.

Some men have such a desire to break away from the tradition and the acts of being conservative. But I think some people want to be so edgy that they end up falling off the edge. They end up in territory that is completely false, but they’re there so they stick with it and take the “The church can’t hang with me” cross and act like they’re a martyr for their faith, when in reality, they are the ones who have killed it themselves.

Now I’m not saying the pursuit of knowledge of the Scriptures is wrong and that we should all be satisfied with what we learned 10 years ago and leave it at that. But we have to keep ourselves in spiritual check. Keep an attitude of humility. Because the Bible makes it clear-
1 Corinthians 8:1-3,
“Knowledge puffs up but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.”

I think a good way to tell people’s motives behind their pursuit of a deeper knowledge of God is to see how quickly they are willing to get into a debate, and how quickly they are willing to help someone. True wisdom is preceded and followed up by humility.

The thing about God is that He hates pride. So in your pursuit of knowledge, get ready to be put in your place by the Living God. Check your motives for what you do. But yes, seek seek seek after the Lord! Go deeper! There is so much of God that we know nothing about! He wants us to find Him in new ways. But we cannot let our desire to know take the place of our desire to know God. And to be honest, our minds will never fully comprehend God. If you work Him down to rationality, you’ve missed Him. He is not a God of facts, He is a God of faith.

2 Timothy 2:23
“Have nothing to do with foolish arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.”

So lets stop trying to prove each other wrong and start trying to prove that we love each other.

John 13:35
“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Well, I can’t think of a better point to prove than that.