The Truth You Know
By freelance writer Linda Hollibaugh
I think back to earlier
years, back when my
children were young.
Without realizing it, I
pretty much functioned in
some form of “Fear
Mode” most of the time.
I was saved, but I really
didn’t understand
all the promises of God
that were mine as a born
again believer. The
reason I didn’t know
enough to claim all these
wonderful promises of
God was simple, I didn’t
read God’s word on a
regular basis, like a
student would study their
textbooks in order to
understand and
comprehend the courses
they were taking. In
fact, I didn’t even know
that I was suppose to
study the Bible.
I came out of a
denomination that would
do a reading out of the
old and new testaments
as part of the service,
but I didn’t know that as
part of the covenant
relationship that I made
with The Lord, I needed
to be obedient to His
Word, keep his
commandments and that I
was allowed to claim his
promises. How could I
obey His word, keep his
commandments and claim
all of His promises if I
never read about them and
didn’t know what
they were?
In the
Bible there were
incredible promises that
were free to me as a
believer, that I didn’t
know about . . . so for
years I struggled in my
own human strength trying
to take care of
everything myself. It
just doesn’t work!
Instead of living every
day, in every situation,
in obedience to God’s
word, since I didn’t
know God’s word, I
started to listen to
people. The more I listened
to people, the harder and
more confused everything
became. I had
become a “people
pleaser”. In my early
life I had tried to please
everyone . . . parents,
husband, children,
employers, friends and even
strangers! In the
process I was miserable,
felt intimidated most of
the time, but worst of
all, I found out, that I
definitely wasn’t
pleasing God and that you
can never do enough to please
people!
About 15
years ago, I started
taking my faith and my
walk with the Lord to a
new level. I started on
a journey that
revolutionized my life.
I stopped trying to
please people! This is
not to say that I’m not
kind and loving to
people, I am, but now my
main focus is doing those
things that are pleasing
to God. As
Christians we have no
business seeking council
from the world or from
non-believers, we need to
seek council from God’s
word and from
mentors that are
spiritually mature in
Christ. In order for me to
know what things,
behaviors, and attitudes
were pleasing to God, I had
to become a reader, a
student of the Bible.
I did not and I
do not read for a
designated amount of
time, at the same time
everyday, because being
human, we will hold
ourselves high in our own
opinion of ourselves when
we think we are doing
such a great thing,
and the next thing you
know pride slips in there
and instead of
reading for knowledge and
wisdom, we tend to brag
to everyone who will
listen to us that we read
our Bible for one hour
everyday before we go
to work, etc,
etc. Sometimes our
pride in ourselves gets real
inventive and we learn to
just slip it into our
conversations like . .
.“when I got up at four
this morning and read my
Bible for
two hours, I just felt
so blessed.” Please Lord
protect us from
pride. Don’t let those
kind of comments from
others discourage you
from reading God’s word,
for knowledge and for the
building up of your
faith. Even if you only
have a few minutes a day,
just start reading
a few verses or a small
chapter and as your
desire to hear more about
God’s word increases
you will find the time to
read more.
You know, the
Bible says if we want
wisdom we need to ask God
for it and He will give
it to us generously.
Consider the Bible to be
like an owners manual.
If we have a car or a
piece of equipment that
is new to us and we want
to know how it works,
there is usually an
owners manual that we can
turn to for information.
As our creator God
has provided us with a
spiritual manual full of
information that will
help us live full and
faithful lives. He has
addressed every issue
that could possibly come
up and all we have to do
is just pick it up
and read all about
it.
It is said
that “The truth will set you
free,” but actually it’s
only “The truth YOU KNOW
that will set you
free. The more you read
God’s word, the more free
you become.
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