Are You Being Squeezed???

Have you ever noticed that invisible forces, influences we swim in constantly but rarely ever notice, are constantly shaping how we understand life, God, others, ourselves, what's important, what's not, etc.?

And, have you ever noticed how what we think about the world, what we think it's all about, impacts how we experience that world. Don't know what I mean? Let this illustration from David Wells' Above All Earthly Pow'rs help:

"...a materialistic scientist and an animist who believes that trees have souls comparable to hos own will look at the same trees rather differently. The difference lies not in the trees, but in the interpretive framework in which they are understood" (20).

In the margin of my book I wrote that the difference also lies in who has the correct understanding of the tree, the understanding of the tree that matches what the tree actually is.

Why does all this matter? When a belief matches reality, we use a specific word to describe that particular kind of relationship between belief and reality. That word is "truth."

When we are "conformed to this world" (Rom 12:2), when we let the world system squeeze us into it's mold so that we think and feel and desire and live like that world, we are living in direct opposition to the truth.

This is why it is so important for Christians to attend churches that don't just make them feel good. Feelings don't sanctify. Feeling are a thermometer for our sanctification. Truth sanctifies (John 17:17), and we need churches that take us deeply into God's truth.

I had lunch with a friend of mine this week and we were talking about preaching. I remember reading an article by John MacArthur, I think it's the first article in the first TMS Journal, about the relationship between inerrancy and preaching.

The gist of his argument was that you see what people really believe about the Bible in their preaching. If you believe the inspiration of the Bible is verbal, reaching down to the very words on the page, than you will preach every word on the page. You'll feel like you're sinning if you don't explain every nook and cranny because you're skipping something God wanted said. You don't do that, you must revisit what you think about the Bible because your actions contradict your doctrinal statement.

We need pastors and churches that preach and live according to what their doctrinal statements say about the Bible. We have that, and Christians will have a much harder time "fitting in" with and feeling comfortable around and being energized by the things of this world. Instead, they'll feel at home in the truth because they're being "transformed by the renewing of their minds" (Ron 12:2).