Compared to God’s knowledge, our information is lacking. For that reason, when there is a conflict between God’s wisdom and our own (and therefore a clash between God’s will and our own), we are wise to “acknowledge” Him in all our ways.
Our Adversary is “that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.” If untruth is the problem, then it should not surprise us that God works to undo the problem by restoring to us the truths we let get away from us.
Humility, not to mention reverence, indicates that we ought to be careful. Rarely are we ever doing so well that we don’t need to hear Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
Whatever is false and illusory will eventually be seen as such, and whatever is true will still be standing when everything else has vanished. In the meantime, we need to be making progress toward truth at every opportunity.
We must reject worldly things not only because many of them are inherently wrong but also because they tend to take over our hearts. The world is not content to share our affection with God; if given a chance it will displace God as our first love.
We need to handle the Scriptures with care. If we’re serious about seeking God as He truly is and not merely wanting to confirm our own opinions, we’ll approach the Scriptures with reverence and patiently work our way toward greater understanding.
In a sense, it would be better to declare ourselves as opponents of God than to claim friendship and then betray Him by our way of life. As unfortunate as it would be to live in open defiance of God, at least there is some consistency in such a life.
Just when we begin to demonstrate some diligence in our spiritual lives and to take some long-overdue steps in the direction of obedience, our enemy is often able to rob us of our progress by tempting us to become proud of our progress!
We often seek God’s favor by offering Him nothing more than the outward actions of worship. But what God is more interested in is our hearts, and if our hearts are not truly given to Him in godly sorrow, then nothing else will be acceptable.
God is not pleased by the mere mechanical performance of acts of worship. There must be consistency between our worship and our character. If we disregard God in our hearts so that our daily lives are disobedient, our worship is unacceptable.
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