♣ Our Creeds or His Deeds?

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:8-9

GOOD CONVICTIONS AREN’T necessarily God’s standards, no matter how sentimental and ‘god-like’ they appear and feel. We are creatures of habit who easily get into ruts of doing things out of mere duty, where we are prone to stagnate that oftentimes shows itself in our clichéd statements. That’s the kind of religion that wearies us until we hear, “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” How we often confine those words to other people who have yet to know Christ, but it is just as applicable for us as believers, who are in perpetual need of Christ’s yoke that restores our soul and liberates us from unnecessary burdens that entangle and weigh us down (Hebrews 12:1).

When we sense and obey the call of Jesus Christ, “Follow Me”, it is not a ‘once off’ decision we commit to, but a moment by moment reality where the evidence of that shows as we sacrifice the standard of our convictions by climbing higher to His ways. While it is a blow to our pride and pet creeds, we are simultaneously aware of our desperate and constant need of Him – “In Your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9). It is not a matter of reaching a plateau, thinking we have arrived only to remain on that plane. God’s thoughts and ways will always be infinitely higher than ours and unless we are prepared to realise that each step we take is only a part of an eternal climb, we will follow our Lord from a distance and continue to walk in the faint light of our creeds.

“And this is eternal life, that they know You the only true God…” (John 17:3) and that knowing is an ongoing and eternal revelation.