Doctrine.
Huh?
I’ll let you in on a secret. When I heard this word my mind would switch off. Not because the concepts were difficult to grasp (although sometimes they were) and not because exploring these thoughts made me feel small (although they often did). But singularly, because inside the tiny brain I call my own, I thought that doctrine and boring went together like macaroni and cheese.
It took me a long time and many ‘boring’ conversations later until God changed my heart to his Doctrine. The pivotal moment was when I heard that doctrine means ‘knowledge of God!’ And if the God of the world has made his knowledge of himself available to me, how is this in any way boring? He has obviously given me a mind. I can think (most of the time). I can conceptualise and create. I can understand. If I choose to. If I care.
I was in the territory of turning to my own way. And what would stop me? Where would the knowledge come from to straighten that crooked path? I’m thoroughly ashamed of my thoughts.
Believing that doctrine was not worthy of my energy was fundamentally ignorant. I’ve never thought that ignorance could define my spiritual life. But it did and probably still does in other unenlightened depths of my heart where I unknowingly cradle sin. If anything, knowing God should have got me trembling in my FMB’s. Sin is fuelled by ignorance.
To write plainly, the thoughts I held towards knowing the one true God were dangerous. Thankfully, God forgives readily and he kept my heart from straying through conversations with my godly and knowledgeable husband and more significantly, God’s holy spirit who is one with me.
Think about this- God has sacrificed himself completely to know me (a loser), and I can’t even be bothered to start the difficult process in understanding Him (a genius). I struggle to put into words how profoundly disturbing that is. I’m sitting here typing, thinking, “This doesn’t even start to explain the grief I feel about this sin in my heart.”
Let me try harder. The pain is deep and heavy. It makes me take shorter breaths. The feeling is weighty and deeply significant.
I think Isaiah 56 talks about me. It prophesies straight into my life. God’s spirit has shaped my thinking and now I refuse to believe the lie I once, without scrutiny, held to be true.
So here’s the reality. GOD IS NOT BORING!
Thankfully, he set my heart on a path of WANTING to know him, and through immersing myself in his glorious-ness, I desired to know more.
And the second more provoking truth. Doctrine is for EVERY believer. (2 Timothy 3:15) This means I can't just pretend that knowing about God is for the leaders of our Church, or just for the Arch, maybe. I have to confront this truth head on and accept that I may have to do some hard work. I may have to read the bible. I may have to ponder God's words so they mean something to me rather than reading his words once, assuming if I don't get it first go, then it can't be that important.
And of course, as we stand before the Holy, unblemished lamb- we are all losers. (Romans 3:23) So it's been made clear. I'm nothing. He's everything. Why am I still failing to see the significance of this? My Lord requires my mind along with everything else in my life. I can't imagine my relationship with my best friend surviving for very long if I didn't really listen to what she was saying to me. Why should it be any different in this friendship? He's astronomically more valuable to me, and my actions should show this.
Doctrine is what tells me that God is good. That man needs a deliverer. That salvation is at hand. That the Lord has completed the task of liberating me from all my wrongs through the one act of heartwrenching sacrifice. That God is completely worth my energy and efforts to understand him.
I refuse to be “blind”. I refuse to “lack understanding”. I will strive to see God as incredibly valuable. I will fight to remember these truths, because my heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. (Jeremiah 17:9) I’ve got the Lord’s words for my life in the bible to direct me and to make me wise for salvation through faith in Jesus.
The Lord is found in doctrine. And therefore salvation is found through doctrine.
I'm now a firm believer that doctrine is for losers. Of which I am the greatest.
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