An Opinionated Rant on Opinionated Rants

Having spent the last several years attempting to blog, reading blogs, ceasing to blog, and ceasing to read blogs, entertaining social media and fasting from social media, I have come to this obvious conclusion: the human race is born to opinion - and to express opinion. Even though we users of social media attempt to undergird opinion with facts and empirical "proof," arguments, and even Holy Scripture, we cannot help but insert our own viewpoints and slants on everything.  Even this post is an opinion not well-supported by excessive footnotes and subscripts of documentation and "proof."  It is opinion, but in my opinion, hopefully grounded in an understanding of God's Word... (Put that in your pipe and smoke it!)

Why do we use so much time reading and listening to opinions and expressing opinions?  I suppose it is an innate desire to know what is truly true. And here I am expressing, and here some may be reading and evaluating...

With the recent death of an actor by suicide, a barrage of opinions about causes, effects, motives, and moral implications of suicide has effectively overshadowed an important reality:  a man died utterly without hope - most likely without the only Hope in this universe.  (And there are those who would debate this statement of mine on many levels.)  What are we to do with this implication? What really matters?

I have spent months trying to seek God on years of what appears to be an unraveling of previously built ideas, ideals, beliefs, and pursuits.  All this seeking leads me to one personal conclusion (which I will not take the time to "prove" in this forum): if we are truly made by a Creator who is intimately interested in us and actively orchestrating our lives and the details of our lives, the only source of any resolution to any question, problem or struggle is God Himself.  And when Jesus left the earth and returned to heaven, He sent to us the Holy Spirit - God Himself.

What makes this glorious truth so challenging is so much human experience and opinion creating a cloud of confusion and suspicion that hides and hinders our pursuit of God.  There is an awful lot of pitting God against Himself, as though that were possible.  Imagine a boxing match between Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Whose corner are you in? Somehow, in our intellectual fervor to discern and decide what is heresy and what is not, we have appointed ourselves as judge and jury on this issue. It is no wonder that there remain today so many un-solved theological debates about various points of theology.  What business do finite human beings have defining and redefining God's constitution?

I think one of the most dangerous things opinionated humans can do is to try to interpret for God what He is allowed to do within the confines of our finite understanding of Scripture, especially in regards to the work and activity of the Holy Spirit.  After all, it is the Holy Spirit who is to instruct us and lead us through the Word to fully comprehend the triune God in fullness. This relationship with God, breathed into existence by the will of the Father, through the atoning work of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, brings life to our souls.  Our delight is to pursue this life in Christ and to enjoy Him in His fullness.  That includes seeking and walking in the Spirit. The trouble is, while we claim to interpret Scripture and its application - by the Holy Spirit,  we often find ourselves in the tenuous position of interpreting the Holy Spirit and His "application," -by Scripture. (Boxing match, 101)

I read this morning from a well-known reformed theologian (and blogger) that while he would not "die on the hill of cessationism," he would consider a current understanding of modern-day miracles and spectacular gifts within a reformed movement to be (paraphrased) scripturally unfounded. And I am sure if I cared enough to read on, that he would somehow insert Scriptural references and studies ad infinitum to bolster his case.
Would it have been so very beneficial for those enjoying the Great Awakening to interrupt an outpouring of the Holy Spirit (God Himself!) during a meeting to examine whether God was behaving Himself and only exhibiting in believers those phenomena specifically listed in the Bible?  How dare God perform a miracle in the 19th century!  This begs the question: Is the Bible intended to be an exhaustive catalog of all "allowable" expressions of the power of the Almighty?  We have to remember that at the time that the Book of Acts was being lived out, it was not written down for anyone to scrutinize as to its accuracy or application for the believer! God, the I AM, at work.

The scope of my brain and this blog is neither wide enough nor trained enough to undertake the whole idea that God forbids us to add to or take from written Scripture. There are certainly smarter people than I who can tackle that topic in the realm of the Holy Spirit as outlined in Scripture, but I believe we can fall prey to self-sufficiency in this area, and this is where my concern lies.
Of course we do not check our doctrine at the door, and of course we want to obey Scripture and be serving and believing in the God who is in Scripture.  Perhaps however, all our hair-splitting debates have crippled us in our pursuit of the Holy One as He is.  We pursue understanding, correct doctrine, correct expressions of doctrine, but God Himself? Perhaps not so much.  It is too easy for us in this regard to digress to trusting in our interpretations and our own understanding of God the Holy Spirit.  We begin to live as though doctrine itself were God Himself. We live, then, "having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power." (Ephesians 3:5)

Having walked through a significant amount of time with a loved one who has seen so much hypocrisy that at least in part, has led to a lack of belief in the Person of Jesus Christ and the reality of the power of the Gospel of Christ, I speak from experience that so much of our Christian living is devoid of the power of the source of our Christianity.  We say we are new creatures in Christ but live and act and look the same as those who would not make the same claim.  This is more tragic than we believe it is. All our never-ending arguments over semantics and words and meanings of lesser things act so much as red herrings, distracting us from the pre-eminence of Christ and the fact the God as Comforter and Teacher is here with us on earth to glorify this Pre-Eminence in us.  We cannot glorify Jesus Christ by solely relying on our doctrine and theology and opinions.  We can only glorify Jesus Christ, being connected to Him, the Head, by the work and power of the Holy Spirit - God Himself.

I would appeal the we finite humans let the infinite, all-powerful and all-wise God out of the opinionated box into which we have placed Him.  He is fearsome and not safe, but that is a good thing. Let us seek Him wholeheartedly without reservations, restrictions, and man-made safeguards and cages, lest we remain under the yoke of slavery to self-sufficiency. 

 I don't know about you believers out there, but I am not about to give Galatians Chapter 5 the ole' heave-ho. (Go ahead, look it up...) 

Rant over.