You can't limit God

I want you to think about anytime that you have learned something in class, church, or a seminar and then changed what you learned to your own words. What do I mean by that? It is way too easy to learn a little knowledge from the Bible for example and then completely change it to make you sound like you know what you are talking about it.

We live in a media consumed culture where a little bit of truth can be completely twisted. We thrive on knowing information that others don't and then we tell everybody what we learn and make it our own. It feels cool to be the source of some much wanted information right? We want people to come to us because we know something that they don't. You know what isn't cool? Changing the truth.

One of the ways that you can think about this is gossiping. When we gossip information spreads like wildfire and next thing you know there isn't even truth anymore. All of the information has been twisted around to please our human ears.

Honestly though, I am not concerned about gossip - it was just an example I used that might help you understand what point I am trying to make.

I am concerned about limiting God because of our own perspective. It's easy for teachers, counselors and well-meaning friends to begin with a portion of God's truth but then go off on a tangent. We can't ever limit God because of our own perspective and finite understanding.

I wonder if I do this with my blog posts. I am sure that I don't. I make sure that I put scripture into every post I have and then I talk about it in such a way that I hope it makes sense to you. I also know that the Holy Spirit helps us interpret scripture so that we may fully understand it. Every time I open my Bible I pray that the Holy Spirit gives me something I can encourage others with.

Remember how I told you that Job had three friends who traveled to see him and they mourned with him? Well they had advice for him and God later criticized them for what they had to say. Job's friend Eliphaz was the perfect example of someone who started with God's truth and then limited God with the rest of the things that he had to say.

"A word was secretly brought to me,
my ears caught a whisper of it.
Amid disquieting dreams in the night,
when deep sleep falls on people." (Job 4:12-13)

The things that Eliphaz were saying were true at first, but he changed what he had to say to Job because of the things that he had learned in his life. He thought that if he learned things a certain way, that is how Job must be taught too.

I really hope that this post made sense to you. The one thing that I want you to take away from it is that we can never limit God. We can't limit God by saying things to people that they want to hear. We must tell the truth.

All the material recored and quoted in the Bible is there by God's choice. Some is a record of what people said and did but is not an example to follow. The sins, the defeats, the evil thoughts, and misconceptions about God are all part of God's divinely inspired Word, but we should not follow those wrong examples just because they are in the Bible. The Bible gives us teachings and examples of what we should do as well as what we should not do. Eliphaz's comments are an example of what we should try to avoid-making false assumptions about others based on our own experiences.

We should never limit God.