Learning To Live Daily For God: Not Ourselves

 Let your conduct be without covetousness;

be content with such things as you have.

For He Himself has said,

"I will never leave you nor forsake you."

Hebrews 13: 5

            This promise of God should warm our hearts and increase our faith in Him.  We hang on the latter part of that verse and miss out the first part that tells us that we must be cognizant of our conduct so that we are not lusting, or coveting those things, that God has never desired that we have.  Furthermore, we must be content with those things that we do have.  A question for us is: "Am I learning to say not what God says, but to say something after I heard what He says?"  Another question is: "Have I really let God say to me that He will not fail me, nor forsake me?"  Too often we have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing, and that He is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing in the by and by, yet, as we grow in grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, in this very present minute.  Have we simply come to that place where we can just sing with joy in knowing that God is our Helper? Or are we simply being obstinate which is only to be an unintelligent prig because you refuse to be enlightened, and if this is so the only thing that needs to be done is to destroy that obstinacy and we can do this by being obedient to the Holy Spirit.  Another question: "Do you believe that Almighty God is the source of your will?"  Let us set this one thing straight; God only expects you and me to do His will: and this we can do because upon our conversion He resides in us by means of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, when we have anything that is simply only some sort of euphoria, or group euphoria, that makes us feel godly, we have forgotten we are godly because God has elected us to be one up His children.  Legally we are already in heaven and the Holy Spirit lead us to live a sanctified life now and Jesus Christ our Savior is making eternal intercession for us.  So as we look at the various doctrinal positions and see how they are acted out within a person or congregation we do so by allowing Scripture to show us the will of God for there His will is revealed.

            I am not attempting to beat "a dead horse," when I write about this doctrinal position that a Christian must speak in some sort of "tongue."  Yet, this is happening within several churches that call themselves Christian and have added what the Corinthian church were reprimanded for misusing.  How different that the "tongues" that are spoken in those churches that believe in this doctrine are different from that which we read in the Bible.  The guiding principle in regards to this gift "tongues" (glossalia) is found in the passages in the book of Acts chapter 2 where we find that the use of "tongues" (glossalia) on the day of Pentecost was the ability to speak in a language.  Those present from other parts of the world that spoke a different language heard their language and not some sort of angelic or gibberish unintelligible speaking.  There is no question that this was a real language for also the Greek word "dialectos" (dialect) was used knowing that people actually heard it in their own language. (Acts 2:6,8).  It is from this passage that we can formulate a definition of the Biblical gift of "tongues" (glossalia).  This gift "tongues" (glossalia) was the miraculous ability to speak a language that the speaker had never learned.  It was more miraculous because the Holy Spirit gave them the ability to utter this unlearned language.  We know also that this is true because those who heard the Gospel spoken in their language questioned those who spoke for they were Galileans.  In fact they were amazed and marveled at this occurrence.  We will soon be going to chapter 14 of the First Corinthians and I included here because we find to strong arguments to support this fact that the ability to speak in "tongues" (glossalia) consisted of a real language: 1.  The fact that "tongues" (glossalia) was a language that could be interpreted or in other words translated: (1 Corinthians numeral 14:5, 13, 27, 28).  The way that we interpret a foreign language is to translate it as it do the interpreters of those who work at the United Nations for when we see the word interpreted it means translated.  An example would be the Hebrew word "Immanuel" that is translated into English as "God is with us."  So the argument that I am presenting is simply this: you can only interpret or translate a real language.  Those utterances that may be ecstatic or some sort of nonsense syllables, or meaningless gibberish, cannot be translated.  Only a real language can be interpreted or translated, therefore they use of the word "tongues" (glossalia) speaks of a real language.  2.  Argument #2: the fact that "tongues" (glossalia) consisted of words.  Paul wrote: "yet in the church I would rather speak by words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than 10,000 words in a tongue" (1 Corinthians 14: 19).  Words are sounds that symbolize and communicate meaning; therefore, "tongues" (glossalia) were not some as static utterance, they were words and they were not nonsense syllables, they were words they were not meaningless gibberish, they were words.  They were not some sort of a ecstatic utterance, rather they were rational utterances.  To not understand and be obstinate to hold fast to that which the Bible does not authorize us or give his worn to hold onto and act out or exercise then we must remove that from our doctrinal beliefs, our practices, and pick up our selves and live this life according to the commands of God.  This is what it means to be an Authentic Christian.

Give to the LORD, O families of the people's,

            give to the LORD glory and strength.

Give to the LORD glory due His name;

            bring an offering, and come in to His courts.

                                    Psalm 96:7 -- 8

Declare His righteousness

Richard L. Crumb