Scripture: More than Memes and Pretty Quotes of the Day

We live in the land of memes. These word quotes, pretty sayings, motivational phrases, and laughter filled verbiage have littered social media. These memes can even be misquotes of words taken out of context to sound better than they are and misguide with half truths. They can and have distorted, confused, and misguided the minds of many.

I see this also done to Scripture.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love me a beautiful scripture placed over a lovely image to evoke the soul and mind. But Scripture, which is the living Word of God, was never intended to be treated as “motivational quotes” needlepointed on pillows yet not put into practice. Scripture was never intended to hang on our walls and ignored. It was meant to transform our lives.

Scripture, when it permeates our hearts, minds, and souls, draws us to the living God, who then takes the distortions of our minds and thoughts and makes them like Him.

Isaiah 55 is a beautiful invitation for those who thirst for Truth, thirst for knowledge, thirst for wholeness in a world that provides only starvation. It is an invitation for everyone. It also reminds us of how corrupt the minds of humans truly are.

6Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

Without Christ, my thoughts are corrupt. Without Christ, my ways are wicked. Without Christ, I run after and believe half truths, I believe pretty words that distort and misguide me from the One who knows all. Without Christ I believe parts of truth and fill the rest in with my own misguided ideas.

In MacLaren’s Exposition of Holy Scripture it states, “the things that God thinks and purposes are not the things that man thinks and purposes, and therefore, because the thoughts are different, the outcomes of them in deeds are divergent (or different). God’s ‘ways’ are His acts, the manner and course of His working considered as a path on which He moves, and on which, in some sense, we can also journey. Our ‘ways’-our manner of life-are not parallel with His, as they should be.

But that opposition is expressed with a remarkable variation. Observe the change of pronouns in the two clauses. First, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts’-you have not taken My truth into your minds, nor My purposes into your wills... Therefore-’your ways {instead of ‘My,’ as we should have expected, to keep the regularity of the parallelism} are not My ways’-I repudiate and abjure your conduct and condemn it utterly.”

Without turning to God to transform my heart, mind, soul and thoughts daily, my life is left to my own demise. I become my own ‘god.’ I become my own source of truth. I am left to word quotes, pretty sayings, motivational phrases, and misguided ideas to shape and form my mind. I am left on a path towards destruction surrounded by others who may have what looks like beautiful ideas wrapped and packaged nicely, to only be a path that leads to destruction.

When we choose Life, when we choose to follow the Living God, we are asking Him,

Abba, 

Make YOUR thoughts my thoughts. Make YOUR ways my ways. Strip me of my distorted ideas, pretty sayings, and misguided phrases and make me like YOU.

When we choose to follow the great I AM we will look different, sound different, and live different than the majority of the world. We will no longer view pretty pictured scriptures as just something to frame, share on social media, and needlepoint on pillows, but as words that hold the infinite power to shape and form our lives to. Words that we know will save the lost and hurting. Words that are sharper than a double edged sword. We will also be able to better discern half-truths and pretty words that are really full of emptiness.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.