I recently read Isaiah 29:13-14 which says:

“And the Lord said: ‘Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.’” (ESV)

This passage may be familiar because Jesus quoted it in Matthew 15:8-9 and Mark 7:6-7.

The lesson we should learn from this is that we can have all the right answers but still be wrong. We can say all the right things and still be far away from where we need to be.

There much to commend in pursuing theological accuracy. We certainly need to build upon a foundation of correct Biblical understanding. But we must always remember that theological accuracy is a means and not an end.

Theological accuracy is only beneficial when it is the means of deepening our relationship with God.

The problem is that I do not primarily have a knowledge issue, I have a heart issue. My heart, left to itself, will twist Biblical knowledge into something that God did not intend.

For example, I can take a right understanding of the sovereignty of God and use it as an excuse for inaction on my part. Since God’s will cannot be thwarted, does it really matter if I do such and such?

The antidote for this behavior is given in the passages cited above. We need to honestly evaluate if there is a divergence between what we say and what we truly believe. When there is such a divergence, our actions will show our words to be false.

If we find that our actions belie our words, the only proper response is repentance.

I had not seen my granddaughter for a while because of my work schedule. A few days ago I got to see her and was delighted by the changes that had taken place since I last saw her. Imagine how surprised I would have been if she looked exactly as she did a few weeks ago (she will soon be 5 months old). I expected her to have grown and changed.

We expect children to grow and develop and we work to assist them in that development. But, too often in the church, we see people who do not seem to make any progress in their understanding or their practice of the Christian faith. And too often, we stand by and do nothing about it.

The writer of Hebrews lamented this very situation with some of his readers:

“Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God’s revelation again. You need milk, not solid food. Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature—for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.” – Hebrews 5:12–14 (CSB)

Those of us who consider ourselves church leaders should be aware of the need of ourselves and the people around us to be progressing toward maturity in our faith. It is our duty to put structure in place so that this comes about. Paul gives leaders a mission in his letter to the Ephesians:

“And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, equipping the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.” – Ephesians 4:11–13 (CSB)

We can have some debate as to how to go about building people up in their faith, but there should be no debate as to whether it is necessary.

I understand the reluctance to implement a “check-in-the-box” discipleship system which may be better geared toward producing Pharisees than mature believers. I understand that “programs” may not produce the intended outcome.

But fear of a bad discipleship program does not relieve us of the responsibility to produce disciples. We cannot assume that because people listen to a sermon once a week that they are moving toward maturity.

Let me switch images as a final illustration. One thing that I have learned about gardening is that if I want particular plants to grow, there are things that need to be done to allow them to thrive. I need to pull weeds. I need to prune at the correct time. I need to make sure that the right nutrients are in the soil. I need to make sure they get the right amount of water.

To have a beautiful garden does not happen by accident. But if dandelions and thistles are your goal in gardening, then by all means stay in the La-Z-Boy.

Similarly, if we don’t care that the church should be all that Christ, her head, has called her to be then we can fill the pew on Sunday and go on our merry way.

But if we are truly church leaders, we must diligently seek God as to how to be intentional about producing disciples that are producing disciples. It won’t happen by accident.

Someone recently asked me about how to respond to a man whose family was killed by a drunk driver. The questioner wanted to know how to break through this man’s grief and explain why a loving God would allow this.

From a big-picture standpoint, Christians believe that all bad things happen as a result of the fall of man. We rebelled, wrecked the world and have to live with the results. But this explanation provides little comfort to those who are dealing with tragedy in their lives.

As I have grown older, I have become increasingly comfortable with allowing God to be mysterious. This has relieved me of some of the pressure to provide explanations for particular events.

I believe that Scripture supports me in this. God told Habakkuk:

“For I am doing something in your days that you will not believe when you hear about it” (Habakkuk 1:5)

Through Habakkuk, God announced that he was going to use Babylon to punish Israel for her rebellion. When we read this 2,500 years after the fact, we can lose touch with what went on. Really, really bad things happened to people when they were conquered by Babylon. The fact that God announced it ahead of time does not make this event less tragic for those who were wounded, killed or taken captive.

In a sense, in the quote mentioned above, God is telling Habakkuk that he won’t get his head around what God is going to do and perhaps he shouldn’t even try.

In the same way, when we are speaking with someone who is forced to endure a difficult situation, we can lose sight of the fact that the pain is real and that no explanation will alleviate that pain.

We are doing everyone a disservice when we try to explain God’s motives for allowing a particular event.

In the book Embodied Hope, Kelly Kapic draws from John Swinton to highlight three negative consequences of attempting to explain why God allows an event.

1. The explanation often ends up justifying or rationalizing evil. By doing so they end up calling evil or suffering “good.”
2. The explanation often silences the voice of the sufferer. The danger is that we can “smother the wounded with useless and often inaccurate explanations.”
3. Explanations as to why the evil has occurred “can actually become evil in themselves, promoting further suffering rather than providing genuine comfort.”

So, when a friend, family member or church associate is struggling to deal with a difficult situation, understand that it is not your job to explain it. By attempting an explanation, the most likely outcome is that you will misrepresent God and hurt the person you are attempting to help.

In Psalm 16, David says “I have set the Lord continually before me” (verse 8, NASB).

Perhaps that is the solution to the problem I highlighted in my most recent post. If I keep the Lord continually before me, I suspect that I would be less likely to think or say inappropriate things.

The Christian Standard Bible says it a different way. They translate this phrase as “I always let the Lord guide me.”

The problematic words in these translations are “always” and “continually.” I find that I have lapses when I allow my pride to take over and I think (and too often say) stupid stuff.

As I write this, I am reminded that we are called to be disciples. The root meaning of discipline and disciple is to learn. Disciples have to learn to exercise discipline.

To exercise discipline is to learn a new way. It is to learn from our mistakes. Discipline takes conscious, continual effort.

So today, let’s resolve to follow David in letting the Lord guide us. Let us resolve to set the Lord continually on our minds.

I must also point out that for the Christian, the motivation for putting forth this effort is not fear of punishment, but love for our Savior. Love is a much better motivator and will carry us through when we fail, as we often do.