ALLOWance

“We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.” John Stott





Recently as I was reading in the book of Philippians something jumped out at me around the 20th verse in chapter one. Paul talked about how he didn’t want to do anything that would shame him. It made me think about how we have gotten away from that kind of stuff. We don’t worry about things shaming us because we aren’t ashamed.



As John Scott says in this quote we need to allow the Word of God to confront us and convict us and to realize there are some behaviors we should be ashamed of. The Bible wasn’t meant for our Sunday reading pleasure and a place to keep track of our family tree and who died when and when someone was baptized.


The Bible is there as our guide to better living. Often people say they wish babies would come with an owner’s manual. Truthfully if you think about it they do if we have our Bible near by. It gives us all we need to know in material that never becomes outdated. It works from infancy to our golden years and beyond.

As well written as it is it will never do us any good without allowing it to pentetrate deep down inside of who we are. It needs to get to the core of our being not the surface of our lives. Instead of turning our backs on it we need to confront it as it confronts us and our patterns of behavior. The patterns not pleasing to the Lord that should cause us great shame.


Years ago when I was a young Christian there were several scriptures in the Bible I thought were misprints or outdated material. For example the scripture that says that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. The way life was going for me at the time I just couldn’t see that as being true. It took awhile but finally God’s word and spirit was able to undermine and overthrow the lie I was trying to believe as the truth finally came out.

What good is love if we don’t allow someone to love us. What good is learning if we don’t allow someone to teach us. What good is being forgiven if we don’t allow ourselves to forgive. What good is God’s word if we don’t allow it to penetrate deep into we are or should be.


The choice is ours to allow God to do the work He needs to do in all of us. The work of undermining and overthrowing our patterns of shameful behavior that shouldn’t be. Its not always easy to step aside and allow it to happen but when we do we will never regret it.


God’s in the building up business not the tearing down. Its up to us to turn over the construction job of our lives over to Him and let the ALLOWance begin. The paying back of benefits reaped from trusting God and following His word to do what it was meant to do in our hearts. To confront, convict, and conceive a life born again in Christ, unashamed and fully devoted to our Lord Savior. Praise the Lord.

© 2011 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing