Use Your Mind Wisely

"Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures" (Acts 17:2).


God has given us wonderful faculties of brain power, and He earnestly desires for us to use them. In His grace, God does not cancel the action of any of His marvelous gifts, but He uses them for the communication of His purposes and thoughts.


It is greatly important then, that we should feed our minds with facts, reliable information, results of human experience, and, above all, with the teachings of God's Word. It is a matter of the utmost admiration to notice how full the Bible is of biography and history, so that there is hardly a single crisis in our lives that may not be matched from those wondrous pages. There is no book like the Bible for casting a light on the dark landings of human life.


While the Scriptures provide our first and best source of guidance, there is no harm in taking pains to gather all reliable information that we may please God with our actions and decisions. It is for us ultimately to decide how God will teach us, but He may be speaking to us through the voice of sanctified common sense, acting on materials we have collected. Of course, at times God may bid us to act against our reason, but these are exceptional cases, and then our duty will be so clear that there will be no mistaking it. For the most part, God will speak in the results of deliberate consideration, weighing the pros and cons.


When Peter was imprisoned and could not possibly extricate himself, an angel was sent to do for him what he could not do for himself. But after they had passed through a street or two of the city, the angel left him to consider the matter for himself. Thus God treats us still. He will dictate a miraculous course by miraculous methods. But when the ordinary light of reason is adequate to the task, He will leave us to act and decide according to careful and logical thinking.


Reflection:


What are some ways in which God has taught you? Why is it important for each of us to use our ability to reason in conjunction with the Bible?


~F. B. Meyer~