Savoring the Savior

Soli deo gloria! To God alone be glory in Jesus Christ! Those were precisely the thoughts and words coming from my friend Tyler and I as we left our first Philosophy 220: Comparative Religions class tonight, ending the official first day of school. After spending 3 hours hearing Dr. So and So repeatedly remind us of his numerous degrees, stressing his and his colleagues' supposed credibility in the area of Philosophy and Religion, we were pelted with various smears of blasphemy and heresy to the tune of "my job is not to defend the concept of Truth, only to try and impart various truths that will hopefully aid you in finding your own Truth--if that even exists at all. And quite frankly, when it comes to 'knowing Truth,' that's the least of all importance; what really matters is finding whatever works for you. Regarding the idea of whatever the [expletive] Truth is, quite frankly I don't care in the least." My initial thought of these statements was "how ironic," yet it quickly changed to "how appropriate." The one thing the world needs (tonight being perfectly represented by our professor) is the very thing it claims to care nothing about. Of anything to ask, the most essential question remains constant--what is the Truth? Whether or not your lifestyle "work[ed] for you" is absolutely irrelevant come judgment day. The question should always be, "does your lifestyle work in accordance with the will of God for the glory of God, sufficiently laid out in His Word?" That, beloved, is the foundation of a profitable education. If the "fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," (Proverbs 1:7) then what more is education than to learn more about Him for the purpose of greater worship? As I sat there stumbling through all that was being taught tonight I prayed and wrote two words on the top of my notes that instantly calmed my anxiety, "Sola Scriptura." Because of our salvation, the fallacies contrasted with the Truth seem so clear to us, yet only due to the grace of our Savior removing the scales from our eyes and conforming our hearts daily with His Word. As today is my birthday, it's only fitting that God in his grace would use a situation like this to remind me of the abundant life I have in His Son. As the hymn writer said, "O' for grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee!" While things continue to spin like a propeller in my head, I can only pray that God would use situations like these to draw us closer to a more pure knowledge of Him, granted to us only through the gracious blood of the Lamb nailed to the cross. Praise be to the One true and Living God, all glory be to the Most High!

MP

"Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?" (Hebrews 2:1-3a).