What's Your "Final Authority?"

Prov 7:1-2 (NIV) says, My son (daughter), keep My Words and store up My commands within you. Keep My commands (Words) and you will live; guard My Teachings as the apple of your eye.

To keep the Word is to believe the Word over anything else. You believe it so much, that you do it rather than doing something else.

I have made the Word of God the final authority in my life. I love that term "final authority" because there is power in just saying it. I first heard a well known Bible teacher use that term almost 30 years ago, and I liked it the fist time I heard it and I've liked it every time I've heard it since then.

So what do I mean the Word is final authority? Let me use this illustration to show you: My body may be telling me that I am sick and what it is telling me is true (I don't deny what my body is telling me) however it's not the final truth. There is a Truth that stands greater than what my body is telling me. It's the Truth that my spirit is telling me that is greater, for greater is He that lives within me, than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4). God's Truth lives in my spirit and it speaks to me.

God's Truth (His Word) is greater than physical, natural, what you can see and feel truth. My body says, "I'm sick", but my God says, "by His stripes you were healed (1 Pet 2:24)." God's Truth is greater truth and if you will believe the greater Truth, then it will rule over the lower truth. God's Truth will overcome the lower truth. The problem with man (woman) is that he is to quick to believe the lower truth and ignore God's Higher Truth. The man believes he is sick, and therefore remains that way (usually grows worse), but the Believer will look beyond what his body is telling him as truth, and will look at what God is saying instead, "Jesus My Son bore your sicknesses and carried your diseases "(Matt 8:16-17), and the Believer chooses to believe what God says over (in spite of) what his body is telling him as truth. In the eyes of a carnal man (carnal Christian) this looks completely foolish. But in the eyes of the man who is led by the Spirit of God, it looks normal and right.

As a Christian, I am in the world, but not of it or I don't live according to the world's standard. I live my life here in this world according to the standards of the Kingdom of God (this standard is the Word of God). Those who live in the world( Christians included) laugh, make fun of, scorn, and judge those who live according to the principles of the Kingdom of God (Word of God). Those who live in the world (Christians included) pass judgment on those that don't as being foolish, deranged or worse yet, as deceiving. This is what the true Believer is up against when he chooses to believe God over what his natural senses are telling him. Some of the severest attacks (persecution) against the Believer come from within the Church (the body of Christ) that are filled with carnal Christians who have exalted what they think is true over what God says is True and then they choose to belittle the one who chooses to believe God over what what he sees and feels.

But God is well pleased with the man(woman) who holds His Truth above the physical natural truth of the world. When I choose to act like God (now I know that makes a few of you squirm, but God would have me act no other way) and call things that be not as though they were (Abraham did that, he's our father in the Faith- Rom 4:17), that's when I'm putting a smile on God's face, while at the same time the world (carnal Christians included) are laughing at me. I have tuned out the laughing and the scorn and I'm tuned into God and His Word. I walk healed in light of God's Word no matter what my body is telling me. If my body tells me I'm sick, I tell it that it has no right to be sick because Jesus bore those stripes on His back, His body broken, so that mine could be healed and whole. Jesus paid to big of price for me to ignore this Truth and believe a lesser truth that my body is telling me. I choose to exalt the Word of God over every situation I face (Final Authority). If my body tells me I’m sick, and my God tells me I am healed (Isa 53:5), which one do you think I’m going to believe? For as a man thinks and believes in his heart, so is he (Prov 23:7 KJV). I am going to agree with God and because if I do, His Word will prevail in my life and my sick body will have to line up with God’s Truth.

I’ve just shared with you the life of Faith of the true Believer. Does this sound like you? Or, are you the one who judges and scorns and counts as foolish the man who lives this way? If you are, then even though you might be in the church and saved and Heaven is your home, you’ve chosen to live your life according to the world’s standard and Prov 14:12 says it best, “there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of that way is death" (separated from God and His promises). What pathway would you rather be on, God’s or the world’s? I choose God’s way, and if I look foolish to you, you should see how you look to me (& God).

It’s time to believe God. Yes, you’ll look and sound different to those in the world around you, but you’ll look just right in God’s sight. Who would you rather please? The beauty of pleasing God and doing it His way is that you get to walk in God’s Blessings now and forevermore and you'll put a smile on God's face because it is impossible to please God without faith (Heb 11:6). Come and join me on this journey. You’ll love it and so will God!!