i was going to cut my hair

then i saw this photo and now i've changed my mind. i just spent 3 days at a beach resort without seeing more than an hour of the beach. it was great! solidifying how Scripture is Scripture because God said it. He has spoken through the prophets and in these last days through Jesus Christ. He doesn't speak through any other way other than Jesus Christ, not cos of limitations, but because He has chosen to reveal Himself through His chosen ways. If anyone today claims to speak a word of God, it bears no authority as compared to His already revealed Word.

There are many ways we undermine/usurp the authority of Scripture. It could be as obvious as some church/personal practices (like women's ordination or expecting to hear God speak today through any other way in addition to His Word like tongues or modern day 'prophets' or through personal 'revelations') or in so-called less obvious practices, as i've recently discovered for myself, in affirming the truth of God in His Word, but not defending and upholding it in my own life and in lives of others.

It does not make God smaller or more limited, for Him to speak only through His means of revelation. Who is man to question why He has chosen to reveal Himself through the Scriptures? Why He's chosen to show His love through the death and resurrection of His Son? it is the foolishness and sin of man that veils the Gospel, and it is the Wisdom of God in the dead King on the cross, the risen Saviour today.

that means, we are all to be devoted to the study and understanding of His Word, as He has given it to us to make us wise for salvation, and all of Scripture is useful to equip the man of God to do every good work to the glory of God. That has so many implications for us today:

All of it is sufficient for us to understand everything we need : salvation, and life in Christ. Which means we don't need new revelation today, as if to help us understand God better cos the Bible is hard to understand. That is the laziness and stupidity of man, and in that, it denies God, saying that God is not sovereign to make himself clear and denying the work of His Spirit in teaching us and helping us to understand all that he has already said. It is also depending on your own self - cos how do you know that YOUR revelation (supposedly from God) is true? Does the Bible back you up? Cos the Bible is what matters, not what you say. I have realized many times in my own life where i have conveniently made God say things He HAS NOT said, by believing he's revealed to me his will for my life in a certain way or believing he is calling me to something specific somewhere. It was just me projecting my own thoughts and wants ONTO God, as if to put my own words into his mouth. And although i deeply regret and repent of it, i feel as though all those who just took it for granted that God did say those things to me and just believed it as i said it out as if it really was God's revelation, they should have said something to me. They should have asked me how do i know it's true? Did God really say it to me, is that how God speaks? What does the Bible say? What makes you so sure it's not just you? So please, if anytime anyone says 'God has revealed this to me...', please be kind and loving to ask this person where in the Bible, and make sure this person is not just denying God's chosen revelation and projecting his own wishes onto the Bible.

Cos denying God's Word = he will be ashamed of you when he comes again in glory. not everyone who calls him Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. not everyone who says "i believe the bible" really do believe IN the bible. not everyone who says God says, really are saying what God says.

God still speaks today, through His Word. Are you reading it, or are you reading INTO it?