Growth Being Reasonable

[K2CHRIST]

dedicated to spiritual growth and inspiration.

Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, and let us reason together", Says the Lord. "Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow, Thought they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.

Being "Reasonable" is being able to reason. God's people were not being "Reasonable" with God. In fact they were not even listening to Him. Isaiah had started a few verses earlier by telling them, Is 1:2 Listen, O heavens, and hear O earth; for the Lord speaks, "Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against Me."

So they were not listening to God, and to be reasonable you have to listen to who you are listening to. That is; to reason with anyone you have to have a conversation back and forth. You put forth and idea. They then put forth a counter idea, which might add to or correct whatever you said. Then you consider what was said, and put forth another thought about the original idea, and the other person again might respond with their thoughts.

This is a great way to learn, and if you are going this with God you are going to get "spiritual growth". And you are going to wind up inspired to get others to grow spiritually.

Still, people have a history of not reasoning with God. They don't listen. Instead they rebel. And that rebellion shows up in their refusing to listen to reason!!!

Is 1:4... they have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have turned away from Him

And to follow up for the first verse I used: Is 1:19,20 If you consent and obey, You will eat of the best of the land; "But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword. Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

So you have to be "reasonable" with the Lord. And that does not mean that you just do what you think is right, based upon your understanding.

Is 30:1 "Woe to the rebellious children," declares the Lord. "Who execute a plan, but not Mine."

God has a plan for you. You find that out by reasoning with Him, not by leaning on your own understanding. Of course we all have an understanding, simply because we all have been given the ability to think and reason if we want. And we have to but that ability to reason to use, because our thoughts are not His thoughts.

 

[K2CHRIST]

If you do indeed come and reason with the Lord, you absolutely find out that your thoughts are not His thoughts. And reading and studying the Bible starts to give you an understanding of Him, but that is your understanding about what you read about Him and not His understanding about what He had written.

Perhaps nothing is more fun and eye opening than taking Scriptures that seem difficult, or hard to understand, or seem to conflict, to the Lord and put forth what I think about them. It turns out that my thinking is wrong. I usually find I got something out of them, but there is so much more to get if I reason with the Lord. But it is going to mean reproof, and if you don't want reproof you are not going to want to reason with the Lord.

It turns out that people usually don't like reproof. They like to think they are reasonable, but they are not reasonable. Their pride gets in the way. If that happens they will not be willing to listen, even if it is God trying to talk to them.

Is 30:9 For this is a rebellious people, false sons, Sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord.

Now Jesus is called the Word of God. That is His name. (Rev 19:13) He was the Word that was in the beginning with God and was God, and who took on flesh and walked among the disciples like John.. His disciples reasoned with Him and got reproved. Peter is the great example of that, but it certainly was not just Peter. Peter just did more reasoning with Jesus than the others. But let us not forget that Jesus told Peter that it was upon this rock that His church would be built. There is a lot of discussion about what all that means, but if we look at Isaiah, it could mean that we need to reason with the Lord, like Peter tended to do.

Now the religious leaders of that time pretended to reason with the Lord. But there was a big difference between Peter and them. When Peter didn't like the words of Jesus, he would still come back to Jesus. Peter would still take the attitude of where else was he to go - Jesus had the words of life.

The Pharisees and other religious leaders had a different attitude. They killed Jesus. And just how do you kill the Word of God? The answer of course is that you become unwilling to listen to Him. If you do that, spiritually speaking, you kill the Word of God. They could read and study their Bible, The Pharisees took pride in that. But they were unwilling to reason with the Lord. They were false sons, Sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord.

It was those types that had killed the prophets before Jesus. What did happen to Isaiah? And what happened to Peter? Those like Isaiah, Peter, and of course even the Word of God who was in the beginning with God, were killed. It obviously seemed like a good way to get rid of those voices who told us to listen to God.

And we do that same thing. We turn off any reproof. We may study the Bible, but let us not reason. That would be like an argument. Let us just say what everyone thinks is fine That way we can all read the Scriptures and think that in them we have eternal life. That way we don't have to really listen to the Lord, or anyone like Isaiah, or Peter who might come along telling you to listen to the Lord your God, and reason with Him.