A SOUND FOUNDATION

April 29

Psalms 119:138 Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful.

Within the quantum of traditions, beliefs, spiritual applications, personal theological preferences, and biblical speculations that form one’s religion, it is important to make the difference between what is the Word, or testimony that God “hast commanded”, and what is the “testimony” “commanded” by “man”, be it of ourselves, a religious authority, or a charismatic teacher.

In the course of my missionary life, I have met many, who claim to have believed in God, and who later became disappointed and ‘left the faith’. At that point, it is important to ask the question, What did ‘believing in God’ look like to them? What did it mean”? Was it the following of an endless and meaningless set of traditions? Was it an experience based on an emotionally hyped high? Was it based on loyalty offered to a man/woman or peer-group? Or was their ‘religion’ even approached as many do a support group, for the comfort of personal problems? Any of these attitudes towards faith represent a faulty foundation, and any “house” built upon it will certainly fall. By contrast, the Word, or testimony that the LORD has commanded never fail; they are “righteous and very faithful” one who builds on them is never disappointed. .(Matthew 7:24-27).

We have here a situation where we create our own “religion”, with our own parameters, expect God to honor it, and jilts Him if He doesn’t. It is sad when people “jilt” God, as one would an unfaithful and unreliable lover, when their relationship with Him was not based on His promises and conditions, but rather on their own speculated selfish and immature expectations. This problem of unrealistic personal expectations is also witnessed today by many a marriage counselor. People have “Hollywood-ian” expectations in their marriage that have nothing to do with what God intended this union to be, and they wonder why their marriage, just like their religion, ends up in “divorce”. What is all the most amazing is that the apostle Paul associated the concepts of marriage with our relationship with God.

“Lord, you have given me your Words, as well as the wit and ability to read it. Give me now the discernment to separate the “wheat from the chaff” (Matthew 3:12)--Your reliable “very righteous and faithful” Word, from the sinking-sand of the traditions and perversions of man”
MarK 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.