DEVOTIONAL- SATURDAY JULY 14, 2012

DEVOTION – SATURDAY,  JULY 14, 2012

Everything isn’t anything

BY

PASTOR BOB COY

The simple believes every word, but the prudent considers well his steps. Proverbs 14:15 (NKJV)

Noted theologian and author G.K. Chesterton had a gift for packaging God’s truths in entertaining ways. One of his most famous fictional characters was a crime-solving priest named Father Brown.

In one particular case, a criminal tries to throw Father Brown off the scent with a supernatural smokescreen. The perpetrator assumes the priest will bite the bait since it’s his business to believe in supernatural things. But Father Brown responds by essentially saying he does believe in certain things, but he doesn’t believe in other things. As a result, he sees through the smokescreen and catches the criminal.

The moral of the story is this: When you believe in something, you’re not going to believe in everything. Or to put it another way, the person who believes in everything really doesn’t believe in anything. That’s the point being made here in Proverbs 14:15. “The simple believes every word, but the prudent considers well his steps.”

When people are so wide open in their thinking that they accept everything that comes their way as the gospel truth, they’re actually revealing that they don’t hold any true convictions. That’s the mindset of the simple.

Yet the prudent person, the one who is wise, carefully considers things. Because they have convictions, they have a higher standard of trust. They know that not everything is true, and they’re willing to exercise their God-given discernment to determine what is and what isn’t worth believing.

Being spiritual doesn’t mean being gullible. Don’t be so simple as to believe in everything that comes your way. Be discerning. Examine and scrutinize things against God’s Word to see if they’re true or not. Naivety doesn’t honor the Lord. Having convictions that cause us to carefully consider everything does.