To Encourage You

Mark 11:27-33 “And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.’  And they discussed it with one another, saying, ‘If we say, “From heaven,” he will say, “Why then did you not believe him?” But shall we say, “From man”?’—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.’”

Have you ever been asked a question that stopped you in your tracks?  I have.  Many years ago I was living a life in which I was trying to live with one leg in the church and th other one in the world.  And then a friend asked me this question: “Why do you do the things you do on Saturday night and then go to church on Sunday morning?” And you know what? I never answered him, because I had no answer.  It was a question that shook me up. It made me stop and think hard about my life.  And I thank God now that I was asked this honest question, although at the time it was a painful one to hear.

How about you?  Have you ever had something like this happen to you?  You see, while we might go through life with lots of questions, how ready are we to have probing, searching questions asked of us? And which is more necessary, especially when it comes to spiritual truth? Are we of the mindset that unless we know all the answers, unless we can understand the things about the Bible that don’t make sense to us, we won’t believe?  If so, consider the account above from Mark 11. Here the so-called religious leaders of that day were in that very camp.  They wouldn’t accept the living Word of God Who had come to earth from heaven. He upset their preconceptions. His teaching didn’t jive with their’s. And so they questioned – not honestly, mind you. They didn’t really want to know. Their questions were motivated by unbelief. They were always questioning the incarnate Word of God.

So what was Jesus’ response?  It was to simply question them. But unlike their questions, which He could have so simply answered, He asked them questions that cut them to the heart.  And it shut them up. It placed them in a quandary.  It challenged their unbelief and unmasked their evil motives.  And they didn’t like it one bit.

So, when you come to the written Word of God, how do you approach it? Do you want to question it, doubt it, or otherwise minimize its relevance to your life? Or would you rather have it ask questions of you? Are you more interested in examining its claims or of its claims examining you? For you see, if you come to this infallible source of truth honestly, that’s exactly what it will do.

Hebrews 4:12-13 speaks to this issue when it says, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”  It probes our motives. It reveals the truth about our heart.  It examines us like only God can do.  Revelation 19:12 says this about the Word incarnate: “His eyes are like a flame of fire.” They expose us. They look right through us. They see our heart. As the Lord said when He sent the prophet Samuel to the sons of Jesse to select a king to replace wicked Saul, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

If you are a Christian, this is exactly what you want. Unlike the mocking and constantly questioning religious leaders to whom Jesus could never explain enough, you will want this One with eyes like a flame of fire to expose what’s in your heart?  You will, like the psalmist, acknowledge, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me!” (Psalm 139:1). And furthermore you will welcome His examination, with the prayer, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”(Psalm 139:23-24).  

You see, this double-edged sword is a powerful spiritual weapon. It has the power to transform a life.  But it’s not just “those out there” that need to be changed by it.  It is the means by which God can continually renew each and every Christian’s mind (Romans 12:2).  As we are told in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”  And it’s not just the opinions of others who don’t know Jesus that this is talking about. Often those lofty opinions and arguments originate from within us. But God’s Word is the remedy.  It unmasks the truth about sin in your and my heart.

May God help us to come to His Word, not with doubts and unbelieving questioning, but with a desire that He would, by it, probe the very depths of our heart.