A Higher Standard

When I was a kid, I was really into reptiles. So one year for my birthday, I asked my mother to take me to a place called the California Alligator Farm, which was in Buena Park next to Knott’s Berry Farm.

I invited a bunch of my friends to come with me for my birthday, and they all came. We went from cage to cage looking at reptiles, which are not always the liveliest creatures. Meanwhile, we could see Knott’s Berry Farm right over the fence. All of us were thinking the same thing: Why we are here looking at reptiles when we could be on a ride right now?

We were on the outside looking in.

Moses, too, found himself on the outside looking in. He lost his temper and wasn’t doing what the Lord had called him to do. So God told him, “Because you did not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land I am giving them!” (Numbers 20:12 NLT).

Why did God deal with Moses this way? It’s because God holds leaders to a higher standard. This is why the Bible says, “Not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1 NLT).

We can’t selectively pick and choose the things in the Bible that we want to follow. We can’t say, “I like this part of the Bible, but then there’s this one passage of Scripture . . . I don’t know if I agree with that.”

However, Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command” (John 15:14 NLT). Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “Do whatever you find easy or whatever you personally agree with.”

We need to align our thoughts with what the Bible teaches.