Revelation 22:18-19
I give fair warning to all who hear the words of the prophecy of this book: If you add to the words of this prophecy, God will add to your life the disasters written in this book; if you subtract from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will subtract your part from the Tree of Life and the Holy City that are written in this book.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
I have written several times about how I take adult clothing in good shape and refashion it into something for children. My cousin Owen LOVES the color orange, so I bought an orange knit polo shirt at the thrift store and used the fabric to create a pair of shorts. There were pockets on the chest, and these I put on the side of the legs like cargo pockets. When I was done, you would never know that these little boy shorts had once been a man’s polo shirt!
I am constantly taking something old and repurposing it into something fresh and new… something that my little ones or I will enjoy. And there is nothing wrong with this. In fact… it’s a good thing! Waste not, want not, you know! I try to utilize virtually every scrap of the fabric in one way or another to create something that will have “life” and meaning for someone else.
Here’s the deal… too many of us are doing this with the word of God… and this is not okay! Our “excuse” is often that… “This is not really what God meant! When Jesus commanded us to love one another, He meant love them in your heart. He surely didn’t mean that we should reach out to the dirty, homeless drug addict and offer to feed him/her. He wasn’t saying to share a pew at church with someone who is openly gay or from another race, much less welcome those who practice other religions into our homes and our communities! And I know that He most definitely was not telling us to be kind and loving toward those who have treated us unkindly and/or gossiped about us and tried to damage our reputation! God certainly doesn’t mean for us to spend our hard-earned money on orphans, the elderly, or that person who we assume must be too lazy to work! This is not how God meant for us to love others!”
We create a “new garment,” so to speak… one that is fresh, enjoyable and comfortable. But it doesn’t look one bit like God’s original “garment”. We twist and turn our interpretations of God’s word so much that it bears little to no resemblance to what God intended and/or actually said. We pick and choose… take parts of the Old Testament so literally that we essentially ignore the New Testament. In her book, Just Give Me Jesus, Anne Graham Lotz says talks about how in Old Testament times, people were required to bring their very best lamb to the priest as compensation for their sins. The “sinner” would stand before the priest and confess his sins while holding this beautiful, pure, soft lamb. Then the priest would hand him a knife and call for the lamb’s neck to be sliced. This was how the “sinner” was held responsible for his own sins…he had to actually sacrifice the lamb and feel the blood wash over his hands.
When Jesus quite literally became the Lamb of God on the cross, all of this changed. He sacrificed His blood for us, once and for all. Does scripture still tell about the sacrifice of lambs? Absolutely! Is this how we atone for our sins today? Absolutely NOT! If you pick and choose, twist and turn, or take one scripture passage out of context in relation to the big picture, you will have something that even God often doesn’t recognize… and He will not be pleased.
We have to be very careful that our own desires and agendas do not color our interpretation of God’s word. It’s very easy to find a verse or two that may seem to justify our thoughts and actions… if we take them out of context or do not consider the bigger picture of what is written in the Bible as a whole. Every word has meaning and importance…and we must carefully consider how these words weave together to present the message that God is sending us. God may use the same scripture passage to speak to us in different ways on any given day… but at the heart of His message, His intent and commands never change. His plan for our lives is constant… His outline for how we as Christians are supposed to speak and act is clear – and it never goes out of style.
My challenge for each of us is to look at our own lives and see where we may have twisted things – even a little – to suit our own needs and desires. Where might we have misinterpreted God’s word… even if unintentionally? Let’s ask God to reveal Himself to us through fresh new eyes… let’s open our hearts and minds and really get what He is telling us through His word. And let’s leave the repurposing and refashioning for thrift-store finds and crafty seamstresses. Are you in?
©2013 Debbie Robus
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