God's Way

Deuteronomy 18:18 (NLT)

18 I will raise up a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell the people everything I command him.

God, having raised up his Son Christ Jesus, sent him to bless us. That he should be like unto Moses, only as much above him as the other prophets came short of him. Moses was such a prophet as was a law-giver to Israel and their deliverer out of Egypt, and so was Christ: he not only teaches, but rules and saves. Moses was the founder of a new dispensation by signs and wonders and mighty deeds, and so was Christ, by which he proved himself a teacher come from God. Was Moses faithful? So was Christ; Moses as a servant, but Christ as a Son. [Matthew Henry]

Matt Woodley writes in The Gospel of Matthew: God With Us, (Intervarsity Press, 2001) - A number of years ago, when I was playing in a friendly men's softball game, the umpire made a call that incensed our coach. My coach didn't agree with the ump's interpretation of a specific league rule. The game stopped, and a heated discussion ensued. Finally, the ump sighed as he pulled a rulebook from his back pocket and proceeded to read page 27, paragraph 3b, section 1.

"As you can clearly see," he concluded, "this rule means that my call must stand." Unconvinced, my coach yelled, "But you're not interpreting that rule correctly." To which the ump replied, "Uh, excuse me, I think I should know: I wrote the rulebook." After an awkward silence, my coach walked back to the bench, shaking his head and pointing to the ref as he told us, "Get ahold of that guy. He wrote the rulebook!"

Throughout his ministry, Jesus didn't just affirm and endorse the words of Scripture; he talked and acted like he had authored the Scriptures. He lived with the authority of the One who wrote the "rulebook."

It is alright that there are times in life that we are just frustrated and want to take up our issue with God. We may not agree, we may want a different result, but in the end we must remember that our creator wrote The Book. I remember my wife commenting on a life changing event for a friend of hers, “I just don’t understand why God would allow that.” There are times we won’t understand for The Lord’s ways are not our ways. We must trust The Lord. Romans 11:33 tells us, “Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!”