The Will of God

Often we must live out the will of God in our lives despite the objections of others. There are many voices in our lives.

Many godly people will give us bad advice. It is not that these people are not godly but we as fallen people have a tendency to mindlessly repeat the wisdom we hear in the world or even the church.

Wisdom is specific to a situation. If it was an absolute it would not be wisdom. You see this is the issue with mindlessly repeating wisdom without thinking.

What is frequently true is not always true. There are many unique situations with various dynamics. We should approach situations in life with a desire to think through how to act, not with a preconceived assumption of what the action should be.

One of the great issues in the church is a desire to help without a desire to listen. I have met many godly people who give advice to problems I faced without first trying to understand those problems.

Often the solution given was so trivial you could find it in a million places. They wasted their time attempting to help because they refused to listen.

You see wisdom requires thought and listening. It requires looking at the details of things. If we wish to live well in life we must learn to think biblically and in doing so speak less, think more, listen more, and consider the uniqueness of situations in life as Jesus did.

Being Willing to Make Mistakes

As Christians we need to be willing to make mistakes. We can sometimes become paralyzed with what is the right course of action and thus fail to act.

We should always be thoughtful people overall, but our thought should help action rather than hinder it. Often you see that fear or over thought which causes inaction is based on a lack of a full understanding of the gospel.

Maybe we do not entirely trust that God will forgive us as he promises if we sin and do not understand that we are already a part of his family.

An over consciousness on righteousness that loses sight of love is a loss of balance in Christian theology. Love is of most importance in the Christian life.

A theology such of that of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' day which lost love because of an uselessness for righteousness is a perfect example of theology gone wrong.

Love and righteousness are linked. A righteousness which hinders acting in love is actually not righteousness at all, but rather a sinful disposition or lack of faith.

Prayer an Easy Out?

Sometimes you find Christians will use prayer as an easy out. Have I done something wrong or sense that there is some action I can take? Of course I will pray about it.

I do not wish to criticize prayer in any way. There is nothing wrong with prayer. Just as there is nothing wrong with food it can be abused if misused.

As Christians a quick response to every issue is to pray. This is a godly prospective in general, but you often see people hide behind prayer to avoid the good action which they should do.

Maybe prayer is an easy out at times because of the private nature of it. But really even prayer can be sin if we are using it as an "action" to avoid the action which we should really carry out in the world.

The bible does teach that the ideal mode of Christian living is to pray without ceasing. But you can always turn the good into evil. A good example from the bible is how Satan twists God's word by misquoting it (taking it from context) to tempt Jesus to sin.