Where do you get your information about spiritual things? Have you noticed?
There are a lot of voices out there. Church leaders, authors with a Christian label, all kinds of self-help and better-life and here’s-how advisors. Many of them sound great. And many of them are not actually pointing us to Jesus or to truth, even though they claim to be.
Here’s something I recently understood, that seems like something I should have always recognized:
Any spiritual knowledge we have and any spiritual practice we do should come from Scripture, and Scripture alone.
Any spiritual help or tool, any improvement of your self, any movement toward God, any understanding of God, any type of prayer, any definition of what’s good and what’s bad, what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s true and what’s false in any moral or spiritual sense – every bit of it needs to come only from God’s Word. Everything we think we know, everything we’re taught needs to be compared to God’s Word, to see if it’s right. Even things we’re taught in church. Even things we’re taught by other Christian leaders/authors/speakers/etc. Even the things I’m saying here.
God has given us His Word to teach us how to live. He says Scripture is sufficient for us: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16-17) This tells us that He has provided all we need to learn truth, to see where we’re wrong, to understand what’s right, and to practice righteousness in our daily lives. He has provided all we need to be complete, to be equipped for *every* good work. And it’s *all* found in Scripture.
Here’s more: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence…” (2 Peter 1:3) All things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him. And how do we have knowledge of Him? We get some general information from nature, of course, but He’s also given us all the specific information about Him we could need through His written Word, which He has lovingly provided and preserved for us.
So then, why would we look to other sources for spiritual truth or for help? Is there a chance God left something out of His Word? Do we think He forgot to tell us about self-improvement, or self-understanding, or clearing our minds, or certain types of prayers, or other ‘tools’ that can ‘help us to become more like Christ’? Did He leave us to our own devices, to make our own maps of the road home, or ‘back to ourselves’? Does He intend for us to get spiritual help from ‘other religious traditions,’ or from ‘the universe,’ or from our own imaginings? Has He left us to flounder, ‘following Him’ in whatever way feels best to us?
NO. Of course not. Let’s look again at His own words: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence…”
If God says we may be completed and equipped by all Scripture, if He says we have everything pertaining to life and godliness through knowledge of Him (which we get through Scripture), then we can be sure we don’t need anything else. In fact, anything that doesn’t come from God? Yikes. If it doesn’t come from God, it *can’t* be good.
God is the only Source of truth, and the only Source of goodness. Why would His children look elsewhere? Any other spiritual source is, by definition, ungodly. There is no neutral spirituality; anything that is not from God Himself is necessarily pulling us away from Him. There are no neutral spiritual beings, and there are no good spiritual beings that aren’t God’s direct servants. If they’re not God’s, they’re evil. And here’s where we must beware: the evil ones are really good at looking good. Our enemy masquerades as an angel of light, and his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness – see 2 Corinthians 11:13-15a: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.”
And let’s be honest with ourselves: we tend to be easily deceived. While we’re in 2 Corinthians 11, let’s look at verses 3-5: “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.”
Even our own hearts are “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 17:9). So even what comes from our own hearts cannot be trusted. We must look to God alone for goodness and truth. What a wondrous blessing, then, that He’s given us His Word!
We must be on our guard. Anything spiritual that is not Scriptural is not from God (we can know this because *He* tells us Scripture is sufficient), and therefore it is a tool of the enemy. And we should not be mixing anything from the enemy with godly things. It’s deception to say we can.
We have to be careful, we have to guard our hearts, we have to look to God alone. We have to take *everything* back to Scripture to see what’s true and right and godly. We have to study God’s Word, so we can know and follow Him in truth.
Our lives as Christians should be based on Scripture alone, and nothing else.
More Than This Mess 