The Holy Bible/Our Golden Calf?

The title for this post came to me during the swirl of activity generated from a question running through my mind during the night and I know it was not ready for posting at the time because I stayed in bed rather than get up and write.

Will faithful Christians be condemned on judgment Day, seems like an odd question with an obvious answer and yet when defined by our lives and actions, the answer has to be yes! In Matthew 7, we find the following statement:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' Matthew 7:21-23 NIV

What I find wrong with this statement from Jesus is the way we have used it to define salvation for us and those we know as we use the phrase, "he who does the will of my Father" to set our agenda of salvation. In our thinking, we have to discover the will of the Father and then be obedient. We find ourselves devoting an enormous amount of time in study, reading, discerning every microscopic aspect of the Bible to know God's will in our lives so we can be "faithful Christians." While I would chastise myself for suggesting we don't need to study our Bibles, I believe it is more than study getting us in trouble. Our problem is taking the Bible and placing our faith in our ability to decipher the rules for living a Christian life from a book!

To be more specific, we have taken the Bible and turned it into our "Golden Calf." Instead of taking the message on life and making it our lives, we proof text what we can and cannot do with the Bible being the "ultimate authority" on what may and may not be done if we are to be saved on judgment day. If the reader read this past sentence the way I heard it come off the tips of my fingers, I would hope you felt a bit torn by me suggesting the Bible is NOT our ultimate authority! While I believe it is the ultimate message from God, I have come to believe it is not the ultimate authority because the ultimate authority has been given to Jesus!

The reader might accuse me of simply mixing words and yet the message of how we have come to use the Bible seems clear enough as I write. When we use the Bible to proof text what we are able to do in our lives, we are assuming the personal responsibility for our salvation. We not only find it necessary to be absolutely accurate in our assessment of what the Bible says, but we find it necessary to instruct others in the RIGHT way of doing something less they find themselves lost on judgment day for not "doing the will of the Father." I do not believe I am the only one incapable of doing the will of the Father perfectly and so I find a need to shed myself of the specifics I once looked for and place my salvation, not in my ability to follow rules, but rather in Jesus who did follow all the rules!

Yes, we live in a world surrounded by men and women who devour scripture daily so they can instruct others on how to fulfill the will of the Father. I once thought of these men and women as faithful Christians and yet, the only things I see in their devotion is learning the way instead of seeing the fruit of men and women KNOWING the way.

The story of the Father separating the sheep and goats in Matthew 25 does not once claim depart from me because you didn't know your Bible well enough. It doesn't condemn them for not being baptized, not singing songs right, having musical instruments, letting women speak in services, letting women lead services, etc. No, condemnation comes from not having the heart of God in all they did for those in need!

Condemnation, brothers and sisters, comes from not loving ONE ANOTHER as was demonstrated with the greatest gift of love on the cross!

PS. I will be leaving for the funeral of Chaney Anderson as soon as I post these comments. As I visited with him during the last couple of days in our lives, he was shepherding his flock well. I commented how his life at that moment reminded me of the Apostle John and he looked over at me and said, "yes, his message was to LOVE ONE ANOTHER!"