Don't Make Assumptions About God

We all have wonderfully active imaginations so that what we don't know we make up by assuming. Most of us don't want to look dumb so if we don't know an answer we make an assumption our answer. This is how a lot of half-truths get accepted as facts. It is what a lot of Christians do with the Word of God that they have never managed to read or study. It is amazing how some people become experts on certain passages and just make assumptions about the rest.

It is for this reason that you will find most Christians quoting men or women instead of the Word. They listen to other people's opinions on the Word of God and assume that they are correct. I am not anti-Pastor or anti-Teacher, it is what I am and what I do here, but people must check the Word for themselves. We must be students of the Word, actively putting into practice the lessons he have learned. So many of us call ourselves Christians but we know neither the privileges nor responsibilities because we don't know the Word of God.

This was the problem the Apostle Paul had with the Corinthians; they were more interested in the messengers than they were in the message. They did not want to search the scriptures for themselves but instead follow the philosophies of a man. They wanted to identify themselves with a certain teacher like Paul, Apollos or Peter. Paul wrote to them:

Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not take pride in one man over against another. (1 Corinthians 4:6)

A teacher has no meaning other than to teach what they have been given. It is not that they are more intelligent or wiser, only that this is their calling and purpose in the Body of Christ. What they have did not come from themselves but from God and is plainly found in the Word. We don't have to make the Word sound more spectacular than it is or add promises that are not there. The Word does not need to be added to because it is already stuffed full of the revelation and promises of God. Paul makes an important point here:

For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? (1 Corinthians 4:7)

We all have access to the Word of God and the Spirit gives us understanding of that Word. It has been given to all of us to understand and to live. We can live it because of the Holy Spirit in us. There is no one who is given a revelation outside of this Word. There is nothing God reveals about himself that is not found here. There is nothing in ourselves that reveals anything about God that is not in the Word. What we know we have received from the Word.

This is why it is important that if people want maturity in their walk with Jesus that they get into the Word and make its study a matter of life and death. How can we serve a God we do not know? How can we hold on to his promises that we have never heard about? How can we be encouraged by the Spirit if we have never hidden the Word in our heart? How can we possibly take part in this spiritual warfare if we are not even familiar with the weapons? Don't make assumptions. Don't fill in the blanks with your imagination. Don't lean on other people's revelation of the Word, know it for yourself.