There Is More In YouMfano

Day 3: Moving Beyond the Truth You Once Knew

The book of Acts is quite complicated. It is an expression of man’s first attempt to carry out the mandate of God without the physical presence of God there to steer him. It is the trial flight of the new apostles as they step into leadership. More importantly, they are in a position to bring to fruition what their Leader has spoken. 

There is a great gulf between what a leader speaks and what a student understands. Just because something is taught does not mean that the lesson is learned. There are people who do not hear what is said; then, there are people who hear what they wanted the teacher to say. People don’t really get the message all at once. The apostles are grappling to see how they have successfully attained an adequate understanding of the Word of God they received. You cannot teach what you do not understand. 

The apostles are now under the direction of the Holy Spirit. The Christ that was with them is now in them. The voice surrounding them now speaks from the inside. The problem with the voice on the inside is that it is not the only voice that speaks. When God speaks from within, you have to filter because there are other voices speaking also – the voices of your past, your history, your religious tradition, your own opinion and ideology. It is easy to confuse the voice of God with all those other voices. 

The apostles are learning to differentiate what is God and what is them; what is God and what is their teaching; what is God and what is their personal proclivities; what is God and what is religion. Understanding God and the difference in those voices is a process that they consistently contend with. They find themselves disagreeing amongst themselves with what they heard. And the disagreements become intense and exciting. Preachers today are still debating texts. It is good to know that even those who heard Jesus directly, heard different ideas and grappled to understand. This is great news because if God were easily understood and easily diagnosed, He would not be God. God cannot be explained through intellectualism. If He could be explained, He would not be God. Anything that can be explained, can be managed; God cannot. He must be experienced; revealed; walked out in our lives and in our circumstances. Little by little, God weans us from the elementary, fundamental ideologies that started us on our way, and we graduate from faith to faith, and from glory to glory in our understanding of Him if we are not afraid to let go of what we once held as truth. You have to be willing to move beyond the truth that you were taught before…But moving beyond can be so difficult.