“Be Doers of My Preference”

As a young Christian, I was always right. Its amazing how right I was about everything. I had Bible verses, and you can’t argue with the Bible. I also routinely read my Bible, and, well, let’s be honest, no one around me read their Bible. But don’t worry! Everything I did and said was verbally affirmed to be in humility. So that covered me. Like the saying goes, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But a weird thing has happened. The older I’ve gotten, the less “right” I see myself. Actually, I’ve come to see that, while I wanted to be a doer of God’s word (James 1:22), I was actually trying to get others to be doers of my preference.

My Preference

It is scary how simple it is for the devil, not to change the Bible, but to twist it (2 Peter 3:16). This was what he tried to pull over on Jesus: He word-for-word quoted Scripture, but he twisted its meaning. He twisted it at the application. And if we are not careful, we can do something similar. When we read God’s word, there are some universal applications that are directly prescribed by God. “You shall not lie, You shall not steal, etc…” But in the vast majority of Scripture, there are commands to obey and wisdom to be applied in a variety of situations that require Christians to use discernment in their obedience. Here’s where I fell into trouble.

I was good at searching the Scripture. I loved to seek God’s face and come to Biblical conclusions about how I should obey Him. The problem that followed was that I suddenly became the measuring stick for everyone else around me. Isn’t it interesting that when you are the measuring stick, you always measure up? I was zealous for truth, but mainly my application of the truth. If someone else, equally committed to the truth, saw it differently than I did, then it was my job to bring them to the real, mature way of thinking: my way of thinking, to be exact. And if they disagreed with me, it was either because they didn’t read their Bible, or because they didn’t want to obey God. I hope that sentence makes you as uncomfortable to read as it makes me to write.

God’s Grace

But somehow (I still wonder how He did it), God pulled me out of this prideful place, and made me see that I was pushing my preferences and not God’s Word. I actually didn’t change my mind about much of what I thought, I just changed the way that I spoke and thought about it. Now, when people ask my advice, I am sure to point them to the Word. Instead of immediately jumping to how I apply God’s word, I give them the Bible, and encourage them to seek the Lord about what He says. And yes, I still give my opinion about the matter, but not always. I’m convinced that there is more good for the person to seek God on their own and come to godly conclusions than for me to cut the legs out from under their genuine seeking of God’s face. Remember, the blessing is not for the man who looks to man for obedience, “but the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:25).

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So let’s be committed to the Word of God. Let’s be committed to obeying Him. But may we view our opinions correctly, and may we not think more highly of ourselves than we ought. May we all be doers of the Word.

Jacob Crouch 2024

NOTE: I’ve included a BONUS post this morning with some thoughts on Conscience, Christian Liberty, and Preferences.