Question

what does thus mean to you

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)

In the above verse, conformity is the focus. Do not just go blindly and believe everything you hear or see. Do not just ‘follow along’ because everyone else is doing so. The information that you may get or the ideas that are shared may not be truthful or firmly established. You need to ‘test the spirits’ in order to discern what is real, what is truth, and whether it is worth your time and effort.

If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity and their years in pleasantness and joy. (Job 36:11)

Obedience is hard to do. Whether you are obeying the law, obeying your parents or obeying your ‘inner self’ in order to stay on the right path for success and happiness. Even obedience to God is difficult. We want it now, and cannot understand why it is not happening now. How can God be so busy that He’s not hearing us? But – God is listening. He knows your struggles. He has good planed for us all – but – it will arrive at His appointed time and place. Patience leads to obedience; obedience keeps us out of trouble and in line for the riches, happiness, and good things from God, that will be worth so much ‘more’ than if we go our own way.

Answer 1

The first passage comes from New Testament where the writers thought were influenced by radical and revolutionary Jesus who criticized and brought a paradigm change in the society thus calling people to think, question and be rationale whereas the second one is from the Old Testament where people blindly followed whatever was asked in terms of God. The first passage asks one to be on one’s own in order to differentiate false from truth where as the second passage is questioning why one doesn’t obey God blindly and asks so many questions. The first passage tries to fit in the reasoning age whereas the second one tries to contain our human intelligence and knowledge. In my opinion the first one suits me better because it gives me some space to get to know things and people before accepting them, so that, I could act to my complete human potential. If I have to just accept something in the name of an unseen God, I’m not becoming more human. Humans should use their fullest potential to excel in life and they should dare to question even God.