Do you think you’ve been missing any of these 3 things?
We can keep our hearts humble by reading God’s word, following the Holy Spirit, and listening to people we trust. I am going to go through and look at these one at a time.
READING GOD’S WORD
I feel like this is the one I’m probably the best at. I’m always doing some sort of Bible study daily. Although I am doing it for my blogs or YouTube videos, listening to a sermon, or just doing my own devotional reading or research for some other purpose, I am almost always in God’s word for some reason. I love studying the Bible, learning more about the scripture, and getting closer to the author of it. This year, I have taken it a step further by going through the Bible Discovery TV reading schedule that goes along with their half-hour program every day. I have done this before, but I am doing it again. This is an excellent way to keep me disciplined to go through the Bible in a year and make sure that I don’t get off track. Also, to follow that, I’ve been following the Expound series of teachings that Skip Heitzig has been doing since 1983. The Expound series takes his congregation and viewers verse-by-verse through every book of the Bible. I have been watching the videos that correspond with the Bible Discovery TV chapters for that day. That way, not only am I getting sufficient study time, but I also hear every word of the Bible read aloud. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by God’s word (Romans 10:17).
FOLLOWING THE HOLY SPIRIT
This one I would like to think I’ve gotten better at as time has gone along. The truth is, many times, God has asked something of me that I have not done. I don’t have to wonder about that. I know that is the case. I have gotten better at learning how to hear from the Holy Spirit to discern between his voice and counterfeits. This is where one of the benefits comes in of listening to people who have been at this longer than I have, even though I’ve been at this for a long time myself now. When you learn from more experienced believers, they can help us better follow the Holy Spirit and understand how to discern, as I said before. When we think we have all the answers, that is when we start falling into the devil’s traps. Nonetheless, no matter how much you learned about the Holy Spirit or how to accurately follow him, there still comes the issue of actually following, or in other words, obeying. This is the part that I struggle with the most. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
LISTENING TO PEOPLE I TRUST
There is really a two-part answer to this question. I’m not really sure that I do have a hard time listening to people that I trust. When I feel like someone has more wisdom or knowledge in a particular area, I tend to give what they have to say more credibility and weight. That’s one of the reasons I don’t just believe everything I read online. Anybody can post anything. Unless they can back it up with verifiable facts, why should I take someone’s word for something? And that brings me to the second part of my answer. The problem is not that I have trouble listening to people I trust. The issue comes in that there are very few people that I actually trust. Some of those people have an outstanding public reputation. They have demonstrated that they have a lot of knowledge and wisdom in particular areas. So I will tend to take what they have to say at face value. But even then, I don’t just leave it there. I don’t have blind faith, even in the people I trust the most. Every true thing can be backed up with facts somehow. “Trust, but verify,” as Ronald Reagan said. Everything someone says, from the individual to the professional to the political to the spiritual, should be backed up and verified. Even scripture tells us to test the spirits to see if they are from God and not believe every spirit because the spirit of antichrist is already in the world. So there are people I trust, and I’m glad about that, even though there may not be a lot. And even among the ones I trust, I prefer to have things backed up. And it’s not just other people I require this of. I also check myself to make sure that I am right quite often. I’m just as fallible as the next person. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for someone to expect the same thing as me that I require of them. To me, that’s just being intelligent. Even the Christian faith is not blind faith. It is faith, backed up by reason, evidence, and experience. Without those, what makes it any better than any other belief system? Without those, your faith is just a house of cards that can be easily blown over by a strong enough wind.
