Authority

I've got this question that's been running around in my mind the past week: What authority are we allowing to direct our lives? I'll make it more personal, what authority are you allowing to run your life?

I've noticed something over the past few months, personal experience is king. The majority of people I meet (including the one in the mirror at times), Christian and non-Christian, allow circumstances, feelings or peers to be the authority that they align their lives under. While I do believe that God does speak through all three of those I think it is a tragic mistake for us to allow them the ultimate voice of authority in our lives.

So what should be the ultimate authority in the life of a Christ follower? The Bible. Duh!?!? The problem is that we know that, but we don't line our lives up under the authority of Scripture. We think that in certain areas (finances, dating, relationships, work ethic, ect.) that God has made an exception for us. Or we just don't give a rip about what God says (which is what Proverbs refers to as a fool).

That's why one of our core values at The Point is Biblical Authority.

Now let me say what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that you need to know the Bible better. I think that knowledge is great, but if it stops as some intellectual exercise then we're missing the point. What I'm saying is that we need to do what we know. We need to align our lives with how God tells his followers to live in the Bible. We need to submit to the authority of Scripture (by the way, if you want a life of freedom, maximum freedom is found under God's authority, but that's another sermon).

It's about trusting God enough to obey what he says to do. Trust and obedience... these are essential characteristics of a Christ follower. (But I thought love was...? Yes, but the command to love makes love an issue of obedience and "loving others" is just one of the things that Jesus talks about.)

I don't know what your daily Scripture intake is, but I want to encourage you to increase it. Then do what it says!