Knowing God Through His Word | Northstar Church

”For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” – Hebrews 4:12.

It happens all the time. You need to make a decision. Your mind is tangled up. And you can’t untangle it. But you have to make a decision—yesterday. So, what’s it gonna be? Time’s ticking. You have to make up your mind. Time’s up. What’d you decide? Each one of us is faced with making decisions on a daily basis. Some decisions are much more important than others. Making wise decisions is an incredibly important skill to develop. God’s Word has a great deal to say about wise decision making. But can the Bible have the answers for our complicated lives? Can we really know what it teaches and can we apply to real life situations and decisions. The answer to all those questions is yes.

2 Corinthians 1: 20 says, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ…” This verse is so powerful because no matter what situation or circumstances I face, what decisions I need to make, the answers are found in God’s word. When faced with difficult decisions it is easy to say in one breath that I trust God, but then find myself worrying about the situation. It’s not enough to simply believe in God, but we as followers of Christ need to start believing God. Believing that each and every promise He has made in Scripture is available to us.

God has demonstrated that He is completely incapable of breaking His promises. The bottom line is the scriptures are sufficient to guide us in every area of life. Sometimes it’s so easy to believe God’s Word for somebody else and to stand in agreement that the promises of God are going to be manifested in their life, but when it comes to our own personal situations we quickly embrace fear and doubt. That is especially true when we face difficult decisions in our lives.

The Scriptures contain everything we need to make wise and godly decisions. We must test our decision making process and decisions to see if it fits with what God has said in God’s Word. The word of God is that it is just as relevant today as it was last month, last year, or as far back as you’d like to take it.

So, how can we minimize foolish decisions and grow in wisdom? Jesus tells us the difference between wise and foolish people in the following verses. Matthew 7:24: “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.” Matthew 7:26: “But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.”

So what Jesus is saying is that those who hear and obey Jesus’ words, the word of God, are wise. Those who hear God’s Word, but do not obey or it put into practice are foolish. Wise decision making is therefore decisions that put the word of God into practice in your life. Foolish decision making ignores God’s Word and reaps the consequences. In Jesus’ story, a violent storm came and destroyed the house built on foolish decisions, whereas the house built on wise decision making stood firm.

Discussion Questions:

How does the Bible become part of our decision making process?
Should we expect every scripture based decision to be a good decision? Why or why not?
What can we do this week to make scripture a more practical part of our lives?