LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? — Psalm 15:1
One time, I was sitting in an office with several members of my team, and we were reviewing resumes. Quite a few people had applied for a job with our company, and we were tasked with finding the best candidate. At that time, the job market was a lot more difficult than it is today. People were aggressive in their search for jobs as jobs were scarce.
On one side, we set out the job description. While we knew what the job entailed, we were not able to recite from memory the qualifications of the job. They were required to be a licensed healthcare worker in this position. That required specific training, including a college degree. Another qualification listed was a specific length of experience. We were able to take the many resumes and compare them to the qualifications.
As we dug through the pile of papers, we found that no one was qualified for the role we were hiring for based on the qualifications. The requirements of the job as listed were extremely high. No one held the required training, education, and experience.
In this Psalm, David asks a question that should cause us all to reflect and encourage us. at the end of this verse, he asks, who shall dwell in thy holy hill? The question is essentially who is qualified to dwell with God in His holy place? If we look over the qualifications, we will all quickly see that none of us are qualified!
Nothing of ourselves qualifies us for Heaven. Thankfully, the story does not end there. While we may not be qualified of ourselves, we are qualified through the blood of Jesus Christ! God is not looking for money, training, licensure, or anything else. He is simply looking for the blood of Jesus.
Don’t get discouraged when you look at yourself and see sin, fault, and failure. Those are all things of this world. God is looking at your heart. He’s looking to see if the blood of Jesus has been applied. If it has, He says you are worthy and more than qualified!
Jared Dyson
Another Well Ministries
From my own experience. I observe the world around me, try out different explanations, see which one fits best. I believe this is how God speaks to us, thru Creation.
I know if I were God, I wouldn't use a book to communicate with humans. Books get mistranslated, misinterpreted, and their words eventually fall out of common usage. Just look at how the Sunni and Shia Muslims fight over such trivial differences of interpretation!
You never would have known the word "God" itself had it not been from The Word of God by reading or from someone that read. No one is that smart. Believe it or not not even you. Yes I to see God in his creation only because I have read his Word. "Heaven and earth shall pass away but my Word shall remain".
Well if you really believe that you can't discover God without a book, what does that say about God?
And there are many conceptions of God from many religions, many of which were or are preliterate. Even the Hebrew Bible was oral tradition before it was written down.
And you are a child of God, stand up for yourself. Anyone putting you down spiritually, telling you to beg for forgiveness, humiliating you, guilt tripping you, anyone doing this is not treating you with the dignity that you deserve.
It is a proven fact that when it is just a spoken transmission of the truth it will change as it goes around the room so to speak. God choose to pin his Word through men led by the Holy Spirit so it's Truth would be sealed/preserved. Yes men contrive their own interpatations of his written Word. You say begging for forgiveness, what a sad response to a gift offered by the Lord Jesus Christ. You only recognise how truly wicked you are until the Holy Spirit passes by and gives you the true understanding of the Holyness of God and what His Son actually did for you. Yes His proof is all around us but his Truth comes from not a book but one Book. You have the freedom to except or reject. One of the Beauties of God is He gives us the freedom to do either but we will be held accountable. I pray the Holy Spirit will pass by you and reveal the truth. After that it is your deceision. Except or reject.
Yes the telephone game illustrates my point perfectly, as it applies both to speech and the written word, because books have to be copied and translated.
And I am not wicked. Didn't your prophet say something about taking the splinter out of your own eye before you do so for others?