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When the 'rich young ruler' asked Jesus how he could obtain eternal life, Jesus told him to keep the commandments (Mt.19:16,17). Yet, when some other people asked Him how they could do the works of God, His reply was to believe in Him (Jn.6:28,29). To clear up the suspicion that Jesus was contradicting Himself, what we need is to understand the context. For example, in the first case, the young man had a rather self-righteous attitude, and Jesus wanted him to really try to keep all the commandments and finally come to an end of himself. Only then would he recognise the need for a Saviour. In the second case, these people were following Jesus because they wanted to benefit from His miracles, and they wanted to know what they should do in order to get that benefit (vv.26,27). Wouldn't it be a great mistake if we don't recognise these two different contexts, but we try to take up one word or the other, saying that they were the spoken words of Jesus?

God is so huge, with diverse aspects to His nature, and He shows the particular aspect that fits the context. "With the kind You show Yourself kind; With the blameless You show Yourself blameless; With the pure You show Yourself pure, And with the crooked You show Yourself astute" (Ps.18:25,26). The more we know about God's dealings with different people, the better we can know about God's character. But then, we can't take a position that what He spoke to or did for someone is directly applicable for us!

This is the danger of second-hand knowledge of God. For example, a certain man may have seen himself as a wretched, hopeless sinner before the Lord, and overflowed with gratitude and joy when he learnt that God had accepted him through unmerited favour. Then he sings, "Amazing grace!" Now another man also likes that song because he realises that God cannot accept him as he is, and so he is grateful for grace! However, in this case, there is no deep conviction of sin or true repentance. It is sad if he assumes that he is on the same level as the first man just because they are both singing the same song about grace!

It is a great privilege God offers to all people that we can have a personal relationship with Him. One example we can think of is Abraham who became a friend of God, possibly by walking before God (Ge.17:1). If we bring every part of our life open to the eyes of God, and judge and cleanse ourselves as He shows us more and more of the things of our sinful nature which we were not aware of before, we can then have a clearer picture of what God thinks about us. That will help us to relate to God and to people in a more realistic manner. In our reading of the Bible as well as in listening to messages, this knowledge of what God really thinks about us can help us to discern what applies to us and what not.

How we actually live matters, because that is a true reflection of our actual relationship with God. Let us not live in an imaginary world of doctrines.

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