There are many who really do think a thing is right because they think it is right. This can happen to many people in many different areas of life. A child can think a math problem is right but that does not make it right. Do you remember having to show your work to the teacher who then could show you exactly where you were wrong? Doctors have thought they were doing right when they removed a limb or preformed an operations, but that did not make it right. They had removed the wrong limp! People in religion can also think that they are right but they are absolutely wrong! Let us notice some things about religious thinking.
Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For my thought are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The only way that we can know what God has thought is by reading those ideas in the Bible. God has revealed some of His thoughts to us. If we want to be pleasing to the One who made us, then let us read and study His Word and do His bidding.
Man cannot direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23 says, “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Man has always wonder, “Why am I here?” Man has always pondered, “Where am I going?” Man has always thought of, “What is in the hereafter?” There is only one place to go to find the answers to these questions. Man cannot and has not been able to answer these questions himself. God has created us and thus He has the answers to these questions.
In 2 Samuel 6 there is a man mentioned who thought he was doing good by steadying the ark of God. The ark was shaken by the oxen as they were pulling a new cart built especially for this event. Uzzah was stuck dead by God for touching the ark. The ark may have been about to fall out of the cart and he thought he would do good by grabbing hold of the ark and steadying it. He thought and he died!
In 2 Kings 5 we find a man who was a leper. This was a dreaded disease as there was no cure for it. This man had the opportunity to be cured, but he started thinking. In verse 11 we find him saying, “… behold, I thought…” One of his officers came to him and reasoned with him and he finally did what was necessary to be cured of this disease. How close did he come to not being cured because he thought?
You see our thoughts can deceive us. Galatians 6:3 tells us, “For it a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” Our thoughts can deceive us into thinking something is right when it is not even close. We can make sure we are right by doing what God said. There is no deceiving in that.
Our thoughts can lead in the wrong directions. Proverbs 14:12 and 16:15 say the same thing which is, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Since God has given us a “Lamp unto our feet” (Ps. 119:105) why not follow the path that He has given us? Why not open our eyes and follow the path and quit doing what we want and do what God wants us to do?
You see God has given us everything we need to go to heaven. 2 Peter 1:3 says, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)” The truth is God’s Word (John 17:17) and we have this word so we have all we need to go to heaven. We need not think that we can devise a better plan. We need not think that we can skip anything that God has said that we must do and still go to heaven. Our thinking will not get us there, our obedience to what God has said will.
Therefore we must know God’s Word to go to heaven! How much time and effort do you spend in knowing the will of God? If God has taken the time to tell us what we must do, why not do what He has said to do and quit thinking that we can come up with a better plan. We cannot change God’s Word, so let us just obey what this word says.
Love, Keith
