Check what’s written!
Hearsay can be harmless, but sometimes it can create huge problems: even well intended comments can create expectations that can’t be fulfilled and lead to stress and disappointment. It’s the reason our society writes contracts down – so that everyone can clearly see what was agreed. God takes such commitments seriously too, which is why the Holy Spirit ensured that His ‘covenants’ (or contracts) with humanity were written down. We find these promises of God written in the Bible and it’s always a great antidote to ‘hearsay’ that can turn out to be ‘false-teaching’ to see what it is that He has actually said!
We saw on Sunday morning from chapter 3 of his letter to the Galatians how the apostle Paul repeatedly refers back to what God has said in the Old Testament, to demolish the false teaching that the Galatian Christians had been fed. Time and again he uses the phrase:
“It is written…” (Gal 3:10,12,13)
In this case the Galatians were being told the only way they could be certain of God’s love was to earn it by strictly keeping the Old Testament law, rituals and festivals. Yet Paul goes back again and again to prove that salvation is by faith in Jesus alone.
We can casually drift into putting false expectations on ourselves, either to perform for God’s approval or work up an experience for our own approval. Yet to be sure recipients of God’s love we need to turn from ourselves and trust Jesus: that is the ONLY way to be right before God!
“The righteous will live by faith.” (Hab 2:4; Gal 3:11)
Let’s stop listening to the hearsay, coming from others or even from ourselves! Let’s check what God has said and trust that!
Spencer Shaw