One of the things that is important to establish early on in our Christian faith is a solid foundation in God’s Word. Why, some may ask? Well, coming from my own experience, from the beginning and even before I truly trusted Jesus as my Saviour, much of what I would store in my heart or would come out of my mouth would be hear-say. Or, a summarized version of what the next person had said about salvation. Or what the preacher had thought about end times. Or this quote or that quote. While there is no problem with sharing a good idea or quotation, it can become a problem when we don’t tie those ideas back to Scripture but rather base our Christianity or knowledge of Gods word off of, well, hear-say.

This is something that has been problematic with me for quite some time. It would manifest itself when I would attempt to encourage others but wouldn’t be able to fully because I couldn’t point them to specific Scripture. I would only repeat to them what the preacher might have said that day or what another person had written in their blog. Though what I might have said would have been true, there was literally no foundation from which it could attatch itself to. “God loves you” and “Jesus died for your sins” don’t seem to mean very much to an unbeliever if they are not directed to where God actually spoke it in His word. The things I would say might as well have been Chinese proverbs or have just come from a book of Christian cliche’s. Because not only was I lacking in foundation, I was lacking in depth as well.

God is so much more than that. He is a present help in trouble (Psm. 46:1). He is good (Psm 100:5). He takes pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy (Psm. 147:11). He became flesh (John 1:14) and bore our sins on the cross so that we could live unto righteousness (1Pet. 2:24). The Lord is distinct and there is n one else like Him.

How can we know that and share that if we are neglectful of reading such things in His word? How can we get to know thi wonderful God and have a personal relationship with him if we don’t read and study about Him on our own? That’s like saying that you know all about Michael Jordan. However, you have never seen his picture, you’ve never read any of his stats, never viewed any of his games. You only repeat what you have heard your friends say about him. In reality, you really don’t know much of anything about him, and your perception of him is blurry at best. In fact, if you were to ever see him in person, you probably wouldn’t even recognize him.

In the same way is our view of God if we do not take time to study His word and are not dilligent in keeping it on our hearts. We will know and present him in such an unclear and dilluted fashion that those who hear wouldn’t even be able to make a distinction from Him and the next “god” or Bhudda or cliche.

Everything links back to Scripture, and if we do not labor to go deeper in His word, then we will end up taking Christ out of Christianity and make it Tom-ianity or Sally-ianity or evenMe-ianity. Our foundation in Christ will go no deeper than hear-say. We will end up trusting more in what othes say than what the Lord says.

We ought to endeavor to dive into His Word for ourselves and seek to obtain a clear and consise view of what the Lord says about Himself and all that He stands for.