M-G: 7.22.12 // Taking a Bent in the Wrong Direction

How easy it is to look at our surroundings with our finite or limited understanding and make statements that impugn God’s infinite holy nature. In a world of never-ending flux, the truth of His immutability (Mal 3:6) is a reminder of how often we forget what kind of King occupies the eternal throne in heaven. All of God’s perfections are unchanging, forever the same!  

Often, we foolishly challenge God’s goodness because we allow our puny thinking to question His infinite perfections. We smudge and smear His majesty by an attitude bent in the wrong direction due to some twisting situation that has distorted a biblical view of God even though the written Word paints a completely different picture of the Most High who in His infinite wisdom and sovereignty uses the turbulences of life to mold and shape us into a different image, a God-like image.

When the circumstances of life kick us in the gut, there is this innate tendency to think wrong thoughts about the Father. Oh, the struggles between the frailties of the flesh, and the faith needed to please Him! We stumble and fall over foolish and insulting thoughts of God as we roll in the dust and wrestle with the circumstances of life. 

Forgive us, O LORD, for failing to recognize Your authority in our lives. You asked for us to simply glory in understanding and knowing You (Jer 9:24a) which can only be accomplished through reading, studying, and applying Your Word. How often we neglect the pursuit of knowing and heeding Your ways, and then a crisis hits…

Thank You that there are no Divine revisions given to us from Genesis to Malachi and from Matthew to Revelation; Your Word is our surety, our bastion of truth, and refuge from the storms of a world infested with error, deceit, pain, misery, and death. Your Word is pure (Psa 12:6) and unchanging (Isa 40:6-8; Mt 24:35) because You, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2), are unchanging and eternal!   

As a people of faith, we really should humble ourselves before the One who will never change in exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth (Jer 9:24b) regardless of the difficulties allowed by Yahweh to enter our lives (cf. Rom 8:28). The God of Jeremiah is our God. Yahweh will never change in His delight in these things and neither should we if we are to be like Him. May we change to be more like the Changeless One, Jesus Christ, and avoid taking a bent in the wrong direction.

"Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts” (Jer 15:16). <><