Do Not Be Deceived - Day 4

Day 4: Make It Your Own

Devotional

There is an important distinction between being exposed to the truth and being established in the truth. Someone can attend church for years and listen to excellent preaching and still be vulnerable to deception, because they have never developed a personal relationship with God's word.

It can happen without us realizing it. We listen to a little of this, we read a little of that, we hear somebody's opinion, we follow someone else's interpretation, and gradually our thinking begins to change. We didn't decide to abandon what we believe. We have been influenced by what we continually hear.

Pastor John was direct about this. If the only word you are getting is what you get from him, you are severely lacking. He wants you to go home and find out whether what he preached is true. Hold a Bible, pick up an iPad or put in headphones and listen. The method doesn't matter. The steady diet does.

Early in his marriage, a man he worked for told him he couldn't borrow a belief system he had not owned. You have to own it. You can't just read it or go to church and hear it. Without that, we become parrots of other people.

After close to fifty years in the Word, when a writer he is reading says something he isn't sure about, he still goes back to the scriptures and prayerfully asks God to show him the truth. That habit is available to every one of us.

Bible Verse

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." - 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (New King James Version (NKJV))

Reflection Question

What does your steady diet of the Word look like right now, and what is one way you could make it more regular this week?

Quote

"I don't care the method in which it's getting into your brain. But somewhere you need to have a steady diet of the Word of God." - Pastor John Pool

Prayer

God, I don't want a borrowed faith. Give me a hunger for Your Word, and establish me in it so that what I believe is truly my own. Amen.