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It takes humility and heart-sight to be willing to focus more on the spirit I convey as more important than being right, convincing the other that my interpretations are more accurate than theirs. The letter kills but the spirit gives life. What am I conveying in my interactions with people, life or death? If I insist on being right I may “win” the claim to being right, but how and what do I do with it? It is tainted with the subtle poison of force and profanes God's name; it feeds my pride and makes me feel justified but it is self-justified which by nature precludes justification by faith in Jesus.
We are always justified by faith, but faith in who or what? If we place our faith in how carefully our logic is assembled we trust in our own wisdom. If faith is in a string of proof-texts and quotations we are trusting others who assembled them for us. If we assemble them ourselves it has the potential to be even more subtle because we can actually put more faith in the “Word” or God than in the God of the Word. Many put more faith in EGW than in the God behind the writings. All of these things have one common element/ingredient that can have the strong potential to keep us self-deceived – the letter.
As important as having valid information is, it is even more important to have the right spirit, which in essence is simply an outgrowth or result of a right relationship to God based on a view of what He is really like that is constantly improving and updating. If we love our beliefs, our arguments, our church, even the consistency of our interpretations more than God Himself, it is the same as loving father and mother more than Jesus. The result is, we cannot be His disciple.
We are loving our own life and beliefs more than abandoning ourselves to His redemption – the letter kills but the spirit gives life. I may be full of verbal and biblical truth but still be imparting a sense of death by my spirit profaning God's name among the nations. (Eze. 36) We know we have crossed over from death into life, from darkness into light when love for one another is more important than “being right”.
Lord, train my mind to surrender control to allow me to live from my heart.
Ps. 143:8
(See My Utmost for His Highest for 11-6) The danger of obsession with understanding truth greater than a personal obsession for intimacy with God.
