Sunday, October 23, 2011

life as we know it

So I was thinking about the things we tend to lean on in life...our personal knowledge and skills, our jobs, our spouses.  Where is it that we go when we head to the foundations...the basement...the footers that personally are carrying us?  One word emerged as interesting: "tradition".  Tradition literally means "to hand over from one generation to the next".  So tradition is all about the means and method by which one generation passes on truth and wisdom to the next.  It does not mean truth or wisdom in itself.  Some traditions pass Truth and some pass falsehood dressed as truth.  It is not in the tradition itself that truth resides.  That is why God, who lives across generations, provided access to Truth through His Word.  God allowed men to be voices and vehicles to speak His inspired Word and to inscribe it and to hand it down.  But every tradition must be held up to God through His Word for authenticity and accuracy.  Ultimately, God is not looking for keepers of tradition.  He is looking for His children to be restored through the extension of grace, motivated by mercy and received by faith.  This is a transaction secured by Christ on the Cross and declared with boldness through His resurrection and ascension and intended for appropriation by you and I directly, without the addition of any other action.  Faith can never be a matter of tradition.  It is not handed down from generation to generation.  It is not interpreted.  It is a living bond: the direct fulfillment of a direct promise from God to every man.  Transformation, not tradition, and nothing less, should be the foundation and the result of this transaction.  

Holy Spirit, author of God's Word, interpreter of Truth, convictor of sin and righteousness, you are the one who carries the Gospel across generations and into hearts.  Thank you, Lord, for the direct access we have through your Son to be in your presence daily and to feed from your hand.

2 Timothy 1;12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.
 
 

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