One Brick at a Time, Sweet Jesus

So, those stones, or bricks, of which we speak, are made up of our own sin – requiring repentance, and of the sins of others – requiring forgiveness. What else might they be made of or cut from?

If I grow up thinking my neighbor hates me because she never comes out to see me or play with me, but the reality of it is that she’s got some sickness I know nothing about that keeps her housebound, what can we call the material that makes up this brick? I call it deception. It wasn’t the neighbor girl that deceived me, it was lack of knowledge.

When I think I know everything, or enough about a matter to form an opinion or belief about it, I might be ripping myself off.

We can never know enough about God and His Word; this is why we’re instructed to stay in His Word continually. About the time we think we “know it all” deceptions come in like an avalanche and it commonly looks like confusion or loss or the belief of an outright lie.

That (imaginary) neighbor girl had no intention to deceive me; I created the  deception in my own mind. Enlightenment about her sickness could have saved me from those feelings of rejection.

We can apply this on a broad scale and we can shine it into the smallest deceptions in our lives.

Just a few of the scriptures that speak to us of the lack of knowledge or sense, include:

Proverbs 10:21 The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of sense.

Isaiah 5:13 Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; those of high rank will die of hunger and the common people will be parched with thirst.

Hosea 4:6 my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.

And Proverbs 29:18 tells us: Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.  – And without the knowledge of the things of God, any vision we have is askew.

So once again, I’m going to point us back to God’s Word; back to reading, listening to and obeying God’s Word. There we will gain the knowledge we need to see as much of the picture as we need to see in order to not be deceived and to uncover the deceptions already in place. This is where we’ll learn to prosper and live lives pleasing to God.