PICK ‘N’ MIX

From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 TIMOTHY 3:15).

Mashing up different religions and spiritual ideas can be very popular. You might even have friends or family who like to Pick ‘n’ Mix what they believe in. I’ve listened to some celebrities, for example, who do meditations on their ‘inner-goodness’, follow some of the things Jesus said and then also hope to come back to life as another person when they die. In the end, they say, it doesn’t really matter what you believe, as long as you feel good and become a ‘good’ person.

One researcher who looked into this trend described it as “tailormade religion”. This is dangerous ground. Real Christians know that Jesus is the only way to God (ACTS 4:12), and that the Bible is the only place to find out about who He is and what it means to follow Him (2 TIMOTHY 3:15-16). All beliefs must be based on the Bible’s truth—not on how nice they sound. Sure, sometimes the truth in the Bible is hard to hear—but that doesn’t make it any less true. If we only listen to teaching and ideas that make us feel good, we could end up following a lot of dangerous lies.

Don’t trust Pick ‘n’ Mix beliefs. Make your focus and your confidence all about Jesus, and test everything against what the Bible says. Then you can’t go wrong. DB

Thinking it over . . .

How easy or difficult do you find it to think about how the Bible relates to your day-to-day life? How often do you read it and test what you hear against its teaching? THERE

1 TIMOTHY 2:5

Genesis 29:31-35

31 When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. 32 Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, ‘It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.’

33 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, ‘Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.’ So she named him Simeon.

34 Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, ‘Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.’ So he was named Levi.

35 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, ‘This time I will praise the Lord.’ So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.