04/30/2018
Reading and remembering the Word of God is very important, but unless we actually do those things we have read then we have gathered nothing but useless knowledge. To be enamored by the words contained in the Bible without putting them to good use by doing God’s will in them is sheer foolishness. Do you live the life you read? Do you not only hear God’s voice, but obey it?
“But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"”
Luke 11:28 ESV
Let’s ask ourselves a simple question... do we study the Word of God because we know Him, or do we know Him because we study the Word? Well, perhaps this isn’t such a simple question after all. This sounds a great deal like the proverbial chicken and the egg question... which came first? Another way of looking at this might be to think about our own early days of faith; did we read the Bible first, and then decide that it was truth, or were we called undeniably by the Spirit to God, and in this state of attraction find ourselves thirsting for God’s Word?
In my case, I was raised in a Christian home, and was told bible stories in Sunday school, but it wasn’t until I felt an incredibly powerful urging of the Holy Spirit that I confessed my sins, asked Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior, and developed a thirst for the Word of God. The Bible didn’t lead me to God... God led me to it. Sure I enjoyed the stories, but they were much like many of the fables I heard as a child until one day a tug became an overpowering pull, and I found Jesus standing before me.
Andrew Murray refers to the Bible in the following way...
“The Bible is a light; the first condition to its enjoyment is a hearty longing to walk in God’s ways. The Word is nothing if it is not obeyed. All true knowledge of God’s Word depends upon there being first a will to obey it.” - Andrew Murray
I have been longing to go on a pilgrimage; I want to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and one day I pray that I will be able to do so. I don’t want to do this because I believe that there is some special significance to simply walking in Spain, or even that I am convinced that the remains of St. James await me in the Cathedral in Santiago de Compestella... I want to walk it because millions of believers from across Europe and around the world have suffered, prayed, and walked it over the past centuries, and their sweat, blood, and beliefs have made this ground Holy. I want to feed on their spirituality as I seek to enhance my own. I want to meet with Jesus Christ, not on the physical route of the Camino, but within myself as my feet travel this spiritually infused way.
I was called to Christ as a boy, and when that happened the bible stories I had heard came alive, and Jesus began to walk with me through life. Suddenly I had a thirst for God’s Word... not as part of an intellectual exercise, but because in understanding what was written there I was able to know Him better, and serve Him more perfectly. The book I was reading, and held in my hand, was merely paper and ink, but the thoughts and ideas that leapt up to me from those pages changed my life. I read words, but what I heard was the expression of my faith. This is similar to my dream of pilgrimage... it isn’t Spain, it isn’t the dirt under your feet, or even the suffering... it is the message of faith that leaps up from everything surrounding you as you walk, and seek Jesus, like the millions before you. It is your spirit longing to be with Him, and the sound of pilgrim footfalls ringing true in your ears. Reading the words on the page of the book called “The Holy Bible” will do you no harm, but allowing those words to leap into you, and following what they instruct you to do will change your life forever.
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
James 1:22-25 ESV
We read the Bible so that we will know God, and Jesus, and then do as they have taught and commanded. We read the Bible to hear of our salvation, our help, our provision, and our deliverance, but before all else we should find our faith there, and do those things we have been commanded... beginning with loving our Lord and God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for your Holy Word, but first Lord, I thank you for calling me to it by giving me an unquenchable thirst for you. I found you because you first sought me, and I know that you would never have been discovered lest you had desired it be so. I thank you Merciful Father for your Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that speaks to my soul of Him. You reach out to me in your Word, but your desire is not that I simply read the words of your holy text, but that I find you in them. Your Word is truth because you are in it... help me Lord to obey, and do your will. Guide me as I seek you in scripture and prayer. As I read your Word, Let me see through the eyes of all those who have read before me, and hear their prayers as I pray too for enlightenment... let this be an encouragement to me. Let me hear your voice Father, and do your will; even as you speak. You are Holy, and great are you that touches my soul. I pray daily that your Word delivers me unto you, and that you find me cleansed in the blood of your Son Jesus... an acceptable gift at your feet.
Rich Forbes