Personal Belief Vs. Truth

A few months ago, we were playing soccer with a group of friends. Before the game started, a bunch of guys were on the field stretching. I advised them that stretching cold muscles isn’t as good as people think, and walked off.
Less than five minutes later, take a wild guess who pulled a muscle in his leg and was sidelined for the rest of the night? My leg was in bad shape for two weeks!

My silly theory may have sounded plausible to someone who doesn’t know anything about muscle or stretching, but it quickly became very apparent that I was the one who didn’t know what I was talking about. What a dufus! 

People make the same types of mistakes when it comes to how they relate to God. We can come up with all sorts of ideas about who God is, what his nature and character are like, how he views us and what he expects of us. Many of those ideas sound reasonable and believable, but often they are just not true.
You can have one person who finds it inconceivable that there is a God who hates and punishes sin, while another insists that God is a harsh taskmaster who delights in it.

I was having this discussion with a young man the other night. He thought that truth is relative, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs about God, and that whatever you believe is what happens to you. Really? I pointed to the street and asked him what would happen if I walked out in front of a car? “You’d be crushed,” he said. “Okay, so what if I believe it’s a marshmallow car? Then what?” He laughed and said I would be an idiot but I would still die.
“Exactly,” I replied. “What’s important is not what I believe, but what is actually true.”
People can conceive all sorts of personal beliefs about God, but what’s important is what is actually true about him. God hasn’t hidden it from us. He’s revealed himself through creation and through His word.

Don’t let your own personal thoughts about what you would prefer God to be like (or what you may be afraid he is like) get in the way of pursuing the truth about who He is and what He thinks about you.
A smart person will seek out the truth, and follow it.
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:12, 16:25