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The Burger King fast food chain has long used the catchy slogan, “Have it your way”—build it like you want it. BK may have come up with the slogan, but it hardly originated the concept.
What do a hamburger corporation and God have in common? Nothing really, but BK and man’s conception of God is a different matter. Even among those who believe in God, most apparently think that He operates by the BK slogan: “Have it your way.” Most men have done so from the time of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel (Gen. 3–4).
Men have incessantly invented their gods, fashioning them from senseless materials or deifying a fellow human being or the sun or moon. Some have tried to meld pagan idolatry with Christianity (as seen in Roman Catholicism, Islam, the Baha’i movement, and the inane COEXIST bumper stickers).
God will have none of it. The Bible, God’s revelation of Himself to mankind, provides ultimate proof (in both of its Testaments) that God has never operated by the BK slogan. The first of the Ten Commandments encapsulates the consistent Biblical message in this regard (Exo. 20:3–5).
Multiplied millions profess belief in God and in the Bible as His revelation. Their practice altogether belies their profession, however. They apparently envision God as operating—in both religion and morals—on the following principle: “The Bible tells you My way, but go ahead and have it your way.”
The New Testament has been God’s Law in religion since the Lord Jesus died on Calvary (Eph. 2:14–15; Col. 2:14; et al.). Roman Catholicism may find in uninspired tradition and/or paganism the basis for its gargantuan structure, high ritual, tedious traditions, celibate clergy, “vicar of Christ,” and the popehood of Simon Peter, but it will not find any of these in the Bible. Nor does the Protestant system with its varieties of hierarchies, names, creeds, and practices find any support in the Bible. Contrariwise, the New Testament inveighs against all such inventions. Obviously, men believe that God allows the have-it-your-way approach.
The New Testament also declares God’s moral law, revealing the way men should and should not live (e.g., Gal. 5:19–25; Tit. 2:11–12). Yet countless professed believers seemingly assume that God will let them have it their way if they don’t like His way. This assumption explains why avowed believers ignore His will concerning fornication, drunkenness, divorce and remarriage, lying, sexual perversions, murder/abortion, stealing, and many others.
The Bible is God’s Word, and all men who have lived since Jesus died on the Cross are accountable to the New Testament portion of it. Avowed believers must know that it articulates God’s way—and His way, not our way, is the only acceptable way.
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in the Denton Record-Chronicle, Denton, TX, September 23, 2016.]
Attribution: Printed from TheScripturecache.com, owned and administered by Dub McClish.
