May 5, 2014 – Isaiah 2

Click here to read Isaiah 2 on BibleGateway.com

lying-kidsWhen you’re a kid, grownups often talk about the responsibilities that go along with adulthood: rent, insurance, frivolous things like food. What they don’t tell you is one of the greatest joys of being an adult: lying to little kids. Those little urchins will believe anything that a large person tells them, no matter how preposterous.

For example:

Yes There Is A Cub Scout Badge For Washing My Car
When the ice cream truck plays music, it means they’re all out of ice cream.
If you sneeze with your eyes open, your eyeballs will fall out

THAT WAS THEN…WASN’T IT?

Luckily, as we get older, we realize that those people with the deep voices are sometimes wrong, teasing, or imbecilic.  But have you ever wondered if maybe you’re believing lies now?  How would you know?  You didn’t know then; perhaps the things you think are so true now really aren’t.

Rene Descartes famously stated “I think therefore I am.”  But are you sure you are really thinking? When you’re asleep, you think you are awake.  Mirages can be pretty convincing.  Our perception of reality is notoriously unreliable: oars look like they bend in water, sound is affected by the Doppler effect, and our memories are ridiculously faulty. Yet we will continue to trust that perception no matter how much proof comes against it? Why is that?

The truth is that that we have to trust something: either our own perceptions, or an outside source.  Do you think that you accurately perceived the world when you were eight years old?  What makes you think that you are accurately perceiving the world at eighteen? or forty-eight? or eighty?

TRUST AND OBEY…FOR THERE’S NO OTHER WAY

This is the heart of the idea of “belief” in the Bible. It’s not focused so much on “I think that’s real” like you might say about unicorns or dragons. Rather, a better translation is “trust,” such as “I trust my teachers know this information will be on the test, so I’ll do my homework.” It’s a choice to obey; admitting that perhaps we don’t know everything. In the Bible, belief and obedience go hand in hand.  The book of James even says that demons believe in God.  Just knowing or not knowing God is real is not the point: trust and obedience is the point. Jesus says “if you love Me, keep my commands.”  Believing in God necessarily implies that we trust him over our own wisdom.  Can you bring yourself to accept that?

Do you trust that God has the best plan for you? If so, why do you keep trying to figure things out on your own? Why are you fighting for your “rights”? Why are you trying to decide which parts of the Bible are “right”?  Either you trust the Bible is accurate, or you trust some other source, or you trust your own perceptions.

The choice is yours.

Isaiah 2:22 – Stop trusting in mere humans
    who have but a breath in their nostrils.
    Why hold them in esteem?

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