Jeremiah 6:16 (NLT) This is what the Lord says: “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, ‘No, that’s not the road we want!’

Have you ever purchased an item and a while later, the company who makes the item comes out with a new and improved version of it? Since you liked the original, you think that the new one will be much better so you purchase it only to be disappointed because you liked the old one better than the new one. One example is the new smartphones. Most phone makers stopped adding the port for earphones, forcing everyone to use Bluetooth earphones, which are more costly and less reliable.

We, as human beings, are always looking to improve things, which is a good thing generally speaking. We want to make things new and more efficient, not to mention more sleek-looking. But when it comes to God's Word and God's ways, the last thing we should ever think of doing is trying to improve on them. To try to do that is to imply that you can actually make what God has spoken and decreed better. It implies that you have a better way of doing things than God. People who change things in the Evangelical world do not think that they are doing that, but that is exactly what many are doing. When you water down the Word of God, removing the sting of it (the conviction that the Word brings), you are actually saying that God's Word is too harsh, so you will soften it up a bit so that more people can accept it, thereby misleading them. This is a very dangerous and slippery slope that generally leads to leaving the path that God has made for us to follow our own paths. It leads to people who say they are Christians saying that God's Word needs to be updated because after all, it was written a few thousand years ago. Surely God doesn't feel that way now, does He? Surely God doesn't expect us to follow such strict and narrow-minded commands today, given that we are such an advanced and enlightened society!

But what everyone that thinks that way forgets is the fact that God warned us not to tamper with His Word or with His ways. The scripture verse above is one of those instances. What ruined the Israelites to the point where they even went into exile with many of them losing their lives was that they left the old, godly way to follow new ways that included sin and idolatry. Anything that we come up with aside from God will be no good because of our sinful nature. There are a lot of new churches exploring a lot of new ways that don't represent in the slightest God's way, and it leads many astray. God's ways and His Word are perfect and do not need to be improved on. You can't get better than perfect. When you reach a crossroads in your life and you are looking for where to go, follow the old, godly way and like the scripture verse above says, you will find rest for your soul.

Pastor Joey Vazquez