A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his
book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (p. 131). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle
Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
The first part means
that we should spend a lot of time in the Bible trying to see how God thinks,
how He reacts, and what He wants. That
goes a long way in building our faith.
It also means to think, to stop and remember what He has done in our
lives in times past, and to read of other’s experiences. That also strengthens our faith but we also need to do some unlearning.
Mark says, "The second
half is far more difficult than the first half. That’s why Jesus repeatedly
said, 'You have heard that it was said . . . but I tell you.' He was
uninstalling Old Testament assumptions with New Testament revelations. Going
the extra mile or turning the other cheek was more than behavior modification.
Jesus was reverse engineering the old rules and installing new ones."
Back earlier in the
book Mark made some statements that challenged me. He said, "According to the research of Rolf
Smith, children ask 125 probing questions per day. Adults, on the other hand,
ask only six probing questions per day. That means that somewhere between
childhood and adulthood, we lose 119 questions per day! [Rolf Smith, The Seven
Levels of Change: The Guide to Innovation in the World’s Largest Corporations
(Arlington, TX: Summit, 1997), 49.] At some point, most of
us stop asking questions and start making assumptions. That is the day our
imagination dies. It’s also the day miracles stop happening. If you want to
experience the miraculous, you need to quit making assumptions.”
Yes we need to learn
but we also need to ask questions. One of the problems in the church world is
we settle on some answers which we need to settle on but we quit asking questions on some old answers that aren’t meeting the needs of this day. And the
same is true in us as individuals. Even
at 67 I still need to be asking questions.
Yes there are some absolute truths that we don't question but there are some areas that we do need to question in order to do what God has called us to do. There is a world out there who needs us and there are miracles that God wants to do through us and people He wants us to reach.
So what old rules do you need to reverse engineer and what new ones do you need to install?
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