A "Radical" Life
Striving to live a life less-ordinary.

understanding God

I'm grateful that it's only my understanding of God that changes, not God Himself.

I've been reading a lot lately on the concept of grace as well as on all the heaven / hell discussions that are going on. The weight of these subjects is great. They're topics with eternal consequences and they need to be understood to the best of our ability, not glossed over hoping it will all work out in the end. It's not at all like talking about whether drinking is okay or giving out helpful tips for a marriage. This is much more significant. Actually, that's a severe understatement. This is crucial. We must spend much of our time and energy thinking about such things. Our understanding of these topics lays the foundation for the rest of our lives and how we live them. If you don't believe in the idea of grace, it affects the decisions you make. And if believe in grace but misunderstand how it works, you live accordingly. If you believe hell to be a real place, it will show in how you live your life just as it will show if you don't believe it exists.

Over the years, my understanding of how God works has solidified greatly. Don't get me wrong. God is INFINITELY bigger than me. His ways and thoughts are ridiculously higher than mine, so I will never have God completely figured out. Not even CLOSE. There is a lot about God and how He works that we simply can't fathom, but there is also much that God has made clear and wants us to understand. There are sooooo many very strong opinions out there of how it all works, and all sides can be quite convincing. If you don't know Scripture, you don't know what to believe. So if someone gives you a convincing argument, you just end up saying, "Oh. Okay." You may think it sounds good or sounds weird, but you don't really have any reason for it beyond what feels right or what you've always been taught. Believe it or not, the pastor at your local church isn't the final word on the subject. On any subject. Neither is anyone else. Just God.

I've debated whether to share my thoughts on this for fear of controversy, and then I thought, "Well, that's stupid!" God has a BEAUTIFUL and perfect plan in place. Why would I not share it? But I will reserve those thoughts for another post, because I don't want to take away from the heart of the message that's already been laid out.

There are some topics we can't afford to be lazy on. If you're not sure what to make of "Jesus," it's beyond crucial for you to figure it out. If you only have a "general idea" of how grace works or why we need it in the first place, you need to dig deeper and grow some roots. If you like the idea of heaven but aren't sure a loving God would send people to hell, you'd better be able to back it up with Scripture, because the consequences of being wrong are eternal.

Yes, it takes work to get there. It takes a lot of brain power and time to read. Don't you think it's worth it?
Posted by THE SMITH FAMILY at Thursday, July 14, 2011
2 comments:
Abby E
July 14, 2011 at 3:02 PM

Love this! I recently read "Dug Down Deep" by Joshua Harris where he talked about the importance of building our faith on a firm foundation and understanding what we believe, because it shapes who we are. That has since inspired me to read more challenging books and dig deeper into the Bible. I'm excited for God to increase my desire for Him and knowledge of Him! :)


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Jeremiah Smith

Jeremiah Smith

WHY THE BLOG?

I'm striving to live a life less-ordinary. As followers of Christ our lives should not look like everybody elses. We should be more giving, more loving, more passionate, more sure, more...radical. But we're not. We blend in and desperately want to fit in. This blog is my journey toward to a "radical" life that doesn't look like the rest of the world.


ABOUT ME

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Atlanta, Georgia, United States
A Hoosier, a Buckeye and two Rwandans out on a mission to serve the world. Missionaries for Rwanda through AFRICA NEW LIFE MINISTRIES. We are entirely donor-supported, so if you'd like to partner with us through prayer or finances, we would LOVE to set up a time to chat!