It is difficult to intertwine the human and divine. Divine ways are so different from human ways that when we try to mix them, they don't fit well together. Often it is like trying to listen to two conversations at once. One keeps cutting into the other.
God spoke through Isaiah, "My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa.55:9). There is always a difference.
As we seek to discover how God thinks and acts, we find ourselves at variance with those around us. As we try to expound God's ways to others, sometimes they are able to understand the divine and sometimes they are not. We are then torn between the decision of whether to be popular with our fellow-man or whether to risk being unpopular. On this decision hangs our spiritual destiny. If we go along with human ways it is much easier to live in the world, but to do so is spiritual death. If not complete death, we are going to go into a period of mental turmoil simply because we know better.
Peter put it this way, "It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them...the dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire" (II Pet.2:21- 22).
Failure to follow after the divine leads many Christians to speak and teach divine ways, but live a life after human standards. Many leaders fall into the trap of believing they must remain popular with their congregations in order to hold them together. If they choose this way, the entire body falls into spiritual decay, the group disintegrates, or the group decides to choose a new leader. In any event, the group cannot grow spiritually under a leader who puts his own popularity ahead of allowing the power of God to operate!
The prophet Hosea said, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hos.4:6). The `knowledge' required is not another degree to add a few more letters to our name. The knowledge required is who we humans are and what we can become when we repent and ask Jesus to control our lives.
It is a knowledge of the deceptive powers of Satan in our churches blinding us from spiritual truth. It is a knowledge of the power available to born-again believers to use Jesus' name to pray to the Father. It is a knowledge of the power available to Christians in their mention of `Jesus' blood to tear down demonic strongholds. It is a knowledge gained on our knees as we repent and humble ourselves to receive Jesus' baptism with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. It is a knowledge that sickness and disease are not part of the divine plan but can be healed today as in Jesus' day through repentance, prayer, and fasting.
The divine plan has been thwarted through humanistic teachings which say that man has conquered his world. These teachings tell us the world will gradually get better and better through man's efforts and scientific discoveries. This is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says the world will become better only after the wicked have been brought low and when "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow...and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil.2:10-11) If we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, all we need do is turn to the last book in the Bible where we are told that the wrath and judgment of God will be poured out on the unrepentant.
Hosea said, "My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the most high, He will by no means exalt them" (Hos.11:7). Jesus said in the last days many who call Him `Lord, Lord' will not be saved (Matt.7:21-22)!
God requires more than lip service. He requires more than theological degrees. He said, "a broken and contrite heart I will not despise" (Ps.51:17). To come into the divine will, the human will must be broken. We "cannot serve two masters" (Matt.6:24).
© 1999, Doreen Palmer