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Day 2: The Danger of Bad Counsel

The moment Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they realized they wanted more … clothes. They had the knowledge that they were naked and desired to be covered. With this realization, shame entered their world. God’s response to Adam and Eve was priceless: “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis. 3:11). We could ask ourselves the very same thing. Who told you things in your life don’t measure up? Who told you the pains of your past determine the direction of your future? Who told you that you don’t have enough? 

When we allow voices that don’t come from Jesus or from people who live by His truths to speak into our lives, we will be led away from the Wonderful One, our every-day, very own, personal Wonderful Counselor.

The apostle Paul wrote candidly to Timothy, giving a warning about the last days, about individuals who will tell us false things and influence us to live in a way contrary to God’s way. His words cut to the quick and shift our gaze from the Wonderful One to our own lives. Reread 2 Timothy 3:1–5, but brace yourself. This truth is hard to hear.

Grab your pen or digital highlighter to emphasize “avoid such people” (v. 5). Such people steer us away from the Wonderful Counselor who has authority to speak into and lead our lives. Now I know what you’re thinking, because I thought it too. I would never allow them around me. Avoiding such people will be absolutely no problem for me. I go to church, read my Bible, and obey God. 

However, such people do creep into our homes. They come when we choose to read a grocery-store magazine article about saving our marriage rather than consulting our Bibles. Such people speak into our lives each time we turn on the television to watch a show whose standards don’t align with God’s Word. The songs and podcasts we tune in to influence our thinking. All these voices can make us weak and vulnerable to the enemy.

We may expand our listening and reading to help us know what is going on in the culture; however, culture can take root and replace faith. The lines between acceptable and unacceptable become blurred. The answers that used to be biblically black and white turn gray. The more cultural voices infiltrate our lives, the more we believe the things they teach and advise. 

Slowly, without awareness, our standards change; the bar is lowered. Our faith weakens as we become lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, and people having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. 

When we live this way, we go to the wrong places and ask the wrong people to help us navigate life’s bumps and turns. It doesn’t take long to get lost and confused about what is true and where truth can be found.