“Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8, ASV).

YOLO. You only live once. So true, but that is usually not what the person saying this means. He means you should do whatever satisfies your fleshly desires. Forget God’s rules, forget His Word, forget Jesus. Do what makes you feel good.

Let’s look at other philosophies of man that might have a grain of truth in them, but when interpreted according to man’s definition, are from Satan. They include:

Let your conscious be your guide.

Follow your heart.

The mind is always right.

God made me like this.

God wants me to be happy.

I am a man (or woman) born in a woman’s (or man’s) body.

COEXIST

These examples are only a few of what one might hear. They are worldviews that will shape our perception of reality if we let them. If we are not grounded in God’s Word, they can become our philosophy. They sound good, but if we examine them, we know they are not what God says.

Where should we get our reality? In science, that says things are true because nature told us so? In our intuition, that says things are so because I think they are? Or in God’s revelation through His Word that says God told me so?

Let us remember that there is more to life than this present world. We must “look at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Let’s make our only life in this world the one that counts for eternity.

Hymn: “Where He Leads Me I Will Follow”

Prayer: Heavenly Father, let me keep my eyes fixed on You and not on this world. Help me to fix Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

Donna Wittlif, Denver, Colorado