Today I feel compelled to start in prayer. Every day and with every devotion, I really must start in prayer.
Father God, You are the one true God, the only One from whom lasting hope, peace, and love come. Your Word became flesh, died, and lived again for our sins. Your Word is everlasting. May it continue to teach us, direct us, fill us, and love us until we meet face to face in Your glorious Kingdom. May we never change it, distort it, or edit it to fit our own desires or the swinging pendulum of popular opinion. You are the great I AM. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Disclaimer: I am not a Bible scholar. So, feel free to stop right here, close out of the blog, and move along. However, I hope you don’t.
There are two points I want make. First, The Holy Bible is God’s love, written out for us. It emphasizes His truths, reveals His promises, and exposes His character. Second, there are public individuals with mega platforms who are altering God’s Word to fit their own agendas or lifestyles. They are doing it in the name of loving others. But, I desperately want you to know ... we cannot out-love God.
God did not inspire the authors of the Bible to write it in such a manner that only those who are trained or educated a certain way can decipher and understand it. He certainly did not inspire it so that individuals can amend the truths to match their environments. The historical stories, the spiritual lessons, and the poetic messages were written for you and me to read and comprehend, no matter in what society or time period we live. God hopes we meditate on these Scriptures. He hopes we sit with them and soak in them. He hopes we invite them into our minds and hearts in order to know how to live out a godly life.
Even if I was – a Bible scholar, that is - I would still ask this of you: With every word I speak, every sentence I type, and every message I share, I implore you to weigh it against the Word. I beg you to check me and compare everything that comes from my mouth with what God says. James 3:1 warns teachers will be judged more strictly. It’s not a role I take lightly. So, I ask that if I speak against His Word that you (kindly and perhaps privately) call me out, show me, and correct me. After all, that is the purpose of God’s Word, to instruct and correct us.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NASB95)"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
That is the only way I can be okay with this calling I feel to write, speak, and teach.
2 Timothy 2:15 (NIV)
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
My heart aches and beats violently – yes, simultaneously – for those who are misrepresenting the Word, teachers who massage the contents of the Bible to fit cultural demands and their own situations and then share them as truth. They are teaching and advocating for principles and values that go against the very Bible they claim to trust and live by, and it breaks my heart – not only for them but also for the hundreds of thousands who follow them.
2 Peter 2:1-3 (NIV)
False Teachers and Their Destruction
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
When we change God’s Word to suit our own desires or to match what we believe is a more loving way to live, we effectively terminate our relationship as God’s Ambassadors. Instead, we designate ourselves as gods. When we believe that the Word is no longer relevant to our current culture, even though the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the New Testament and who will be the same God as in all eternity, we are relinquishing our need for a Savior. Rather than creating a more loving culture of Christians, we are enabling a group of people to believe they know what is more loving than God Himself.
Look, friends. I don’t always like what the Bible says either. There are parts of the His Word that I would enjoy ripping out, shredding, or rewriting. The most chilling verse in the Bible for me is Matthew 7:23. It says, “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” The Lord is speaking to those trying to enter the Kingdom of Heaven who thought that because they were good people, did faithful work, and believed in the God of all creation, that they were His disciples and were granted entrance into eternity with Him. As is stated, “even demons believe ... and shudder.” (James 2:19) The truth is that we can do nothing on our own to guarantee our salvation – including loving others to the point of turning a blind heart to truth. Only through the blood of Jesus, our proclamation that He is our Savior, and by God’s grace will we enter those gates.
If we ignore the uncomfortable truths, if we hide or minimize parts of the Bible, then we should just put the whole of it on the shelf. To believe we can edit His Word to suit ourselves - even the majority of ourselves - is to promote ourselves to the status of gods. We are not God, and we cannot out-love Him! He loves us enough to give us His Word. In the flesh. Who died a wicked death. For us. All of us.
To my LGBT friends (I know there are many of you reading this) ...
You know me. I love you. Deeply. This is so hard. And, likely nowhere near as hard as from inside your shoes. I don’t like it, but if I negotiate and concede on what the Bible tells me is Truth, I believe I am giving up on God Himself. I cannot relegate Him from Supreme Being who loves us all and wants the best for us to some far away entity that doesn’t have a clue as to what we need. I can't make Him malleable to fit my opinions. He did not create us to live comfortable and happy lives. Trust me. I know this firsthand. I have died to myself a dozen times a day in my recent past – and continue to do so for I am a sinner. I have had to put away my own beliefs and desires and dig into what His Word says in order to make it to the next day. He created us for a bigger purpose than to simply be happy. I cannot just give up on that purpose. And, as I walk that decision out, I’ve learned that the amount of joy that springs up from walking in His truth is so much more than what any emotional happiness can fill. Please hear my weeping heart – because it is breaking – I pray for you. I empathize with you. I hope you can also empathize with my position. I do not judge you. I pray you know that it is not personal between you and me but deeply personal between me and God. I love you. I love God. And, I am choosing to follow His Word.
His love for us is vast and unfathomable. He knows our fears, our desires, and our struggles. He knows what makes us happy. He knows what makes us angry. He knows what we think in the quiet of our homes. He knows what makes us human. He knows. He loves us just the same. And still...
His ways are not our ways. (Isaiah 55:8) I firmly believe this is a wonderful promise even when His ways disrupt our ideas of what’s “best” or “allowable,” and certainly what’s “holy.”
So, I ask you: What are your teachers teaching you? By their fruit you can recognize true and false teachers, true and false disciples. (Matthew 7:16-20) Do not be led astray. Compare everything to God’s Word. Start with this post.
I challenge each of you: Make it about God’s love for us all and how He loves out loud with His Word and not about us trying to out-love God by changing His Word.
Because we can’t.
Influenced by my prayer life, current events, and The Holy Bible in its entirety, including John 3:16, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:7-8, John 13:34-35, Isaiah 41:13, and others listed above.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I realize this is a sensitive topic, and one that will likely cause backlash and stir up raw emotion. My hope is that you seek to understand my perspective as I have sought to understand others’ views. I know I am likely now in the minority with regards to certain topics. I write this from a deep place of sadness – not judgment or condemnation. I am no better than anyone else. I am in need of Jesus as much as (if not more than) the next person. Fear, judgment, and condemnation are things of the enemy that I refuse to participate in and have worked hard to remove from my life. I could have easily kept all this inside, living in quiet sorrow for those I love who I feel are being deceived, hiding the Word in my heart but failing to love others by releasing it. I chose to speak up and live out truth in love because I truly care – just as these celebrity thought leaders who speak out against traditional Christian values. But, I cannot stay silent any longer. You see, I will meet God face to face some day and give an account for my own actions. I don’t want silence to be one of those actions I must face with regret. You can’t share truth without having love. Neither can you truly love without sharing the truth. They go hand-in-hand. If your perspective is different than mine, I respect that. But, if I had kept silent, then I feel I would have been part of the enemy’s plan. The beauty of God’s creation is our ability to think for ourselves. And, the beauty of our nation is our right to respectfully speak out. I hope you don’t unsubscribe or unfriend me in some social-media kind of protest. I pray that you take this to the Lord and allow Him to show you His truth. Thank you.
©2012-2016 Cortney Donelson. All rights reserved.
Cortney's book, Clay Jar, Cracked: When We're Broken But Not Shattered is available now as an ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers, as well as in paperback at www.cortneydonelson.com! It will be available world-wide in bookstores and libraries through Morgan James Publishing when publicly released on March 7, 2017. Visit www.cortneydonelson.com for more information and to learn about the "I'm a Clay Jar" Encourager Class for groups! To schedule speaking engagements, please email Cortney directly.
