When Faith Meets Preference: Listening to God Without Rewriting His Words

 

When Faith Meets Preference: Listening to God Without Rewriting His Words

One of the quiet struggles in modern faith is this: many people don’t reject God outright—they reshape Him. Instead of receiving His word with humility, they soften the truth, bend it to fit their preferences, and reinterpret it until it feels comfortable.

But genuine faith isn’t about comfort. It’s about surrender.

God’s word isn’t a buffet where we pick what we like and leave the rest behind. It’s a living truth meant to transform us, not flatter us. When we edit His message to suit our desires, we’re no longer following Him—we’re following ourselves.

True discipleship means hearing what God is actually saying, even when it challenges us. It means laying down our pride, our opinions, and our need to be right. It means choosing obedience over convenience.

This is the difference between religion and relationship. Religion can be molded to fit a lifestyle. But relationship with God requires that we be molded by Him.

So the question becomes: are we truly listening? Or are we rewriting?

Hebrews 4:12 Context

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. 11Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. 12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. 14Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.