A LITMUS TEST FOR TRUTH

“If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.”  John 7:17

Jesus’ words grated against the Pharisees for many reasons.  One was their unwillingness to obey what He said.  They set themselves up to be judges of His words, not understanding that only doing God’s will brings understanding to the commandments.  The British preacher F.W.Robertson said that “obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge.” If any man or woman is willing to obey, they shall understand the truth behind the action.  There is no substitute for application.

Whether we seek to teach another to work with bread dough or refinish furniture, the concepts of both skills will remain a true mystery until our hands touch the dough or work with the wood.  There can be no substitute for feeling the elasticity of the perfect lump of dough or fine-sanding a piece of oak and running your fingers down the grain to feel the perfect smoothness of the wood grain.  To sit in school and hear the mechanics of woodworking does not yield a wood working expert.   Nor does a culinary classroom course yield a baker.

There are many commands of Jesus that I can hold at arms length because I am waiting to make better sense of them cognitively.  I keep turning His words over in my heart, much like the Pharisees, and ask myself, “I don’t see how this commandment has anything to do with me.  How will obeying this change anything?” Yet, until I obey it and watch application bring true insight, I have just enough knowledge to be dangerous.  My arrogance keeps me walking in blindness, yet I think I know.

There’s an old children’s song I learned in Sunday School.  “God said it.  I believe it.” Today, I ask God to make me more childlike because children are prone, by default, to believe what they’re told.  They’re willing for life to be defined.  If God said it, I choose to believe it even when I don’t yet understand.  Obedience puts the piece of spiritual oak between my fingers.

Who am I to question You, Lord?  Who do I think I am that I have understand before I obey?  Help me remember that obedience brings understanding.  You made things work that way because obedience done without understanding is based on faith.  How you love faith!  Amen