Silly Bird

This spring we have a pair of red-breasted grosbeaks visiting us here on the mountain, enjoying the hospitality of our birdfeeders.  But one of them seems determined to eat from the hummingbird feeder!  Silly bird!

Red-breasted grosbeaks are designed to eat seeds, not sugar water.  And they do not have long, narrow beaks (like hummingbirds have) that would allow them to drink from those tiny holes in a hummingbird feeder.  But still the bird persists in trying to find a perch on the hummingbird feeder and feed himself there.  Silly bird!

As I was watching that again this morning, it occurred to me that there are many in Christendom who are doing much the same thing.

Feeding at the wrong feeder.

Looking for spiritual nourishment in all the wrong places.  Looking to tweets and Facebook posts.  To bestsellers.  To pop psychology.  To a favorite TV "preacher".  To the prosperity gospel.  To false teachers.  To books about the Bible, rather than to the Bible itself.

Looking everywhere but to the right place.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that man's chief end is "to worship God and enjoy Him forever."  That's what we were designed to do.  And where do we learn how to worship God, how to enjoy Him?  Where do we learn about Him?  Where do we learn how He wants us to live?

We learn that from the Book He left to us.  From the written revelation of God that we know as the Bible.  From the whole Bible.  Not just parts of it.  Not just the easy parts.  Or the parts that are currently trendy or popular.  From the whole counsel of the Word of God.

Too many of us, I'm afraid, are like that silly red-breasted grosbeak.  Feeding at the wrong place.  Feeding at the place that looks good.  But not at the place where we were designed to be fed.

Silly bird.  Silly us.  How foolish.

How foolish to depend on a tweet for our spiritual sustenance.

How foolish to trust in the false gospel of those who ignore the whole counsel of the Word of God for the parts that are easy. 

How foolish to trust in those who teach us that every day should be Friday, in direct opposition to what the Word teaches.

How foolish to believe that all God wants for you is to be happy and successful, when the Word teaches that "all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."  (2 Timothy 3:12 ESV)

How foolish.  When we have the Bible available to us in multiple formats and multiple translations, when we have such easy access to the Word of God, how foolish not to feast on it daily!  How sad.

How foolish to be feeding our souls at the wrong feeder. 

Just like that red-breasted grosbeak tries to feed his body at the wrong feeder.

Silly bird.

Silly us.

"Oh how I love your law!  It is my meditation all the day."  (Psalm 119:97 ESV)

"How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!  Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way."  (Psalm 119:103-104 ESV)

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."  (Psalm 119:105 ESV)

"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth."  (2 Timothy 2:15 NASB)