Doctrinally, I can tell you that no matter how bad I screw up in this life God will still love me, but the point is not that I know this truth, but how this affects my own relationship with God and others. I could tell you that I am saved by grace through faith, but the point is how it impacts the way I treat others on a daily basis, and how it crushes my own pride in approaching God. I could tell you that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, the life, but the point is that the next time I meet a person beaten and broken from this world, I can point them to that very source of life: Jesus Christ. The point is not that I will have spent 1600's hours in the Bible, but that it will carry over into my relationship with God, others, and affect the decisions I make for the rest of my life.
Some of the most doctrinal talks I have ever had were completely and only for myself.
My point is not that talking about doctrine is unimportant, because doctrine is essential for living out every aspect of the Christian life. But more and more I realize my Christian life is not about cracking my Bible open for 10 minutes once a day, but it is about how that ten minutes in God's word affects the rest of my day. The question is not if you have been reading, but if while you were reading, you believe what you read, and reckoned it true in your life as well. God doesn't care about you opening your Bible every morning, what He cares about is relationship, what He cares about is me being conformed into the image of His son. Me reading the Bible must never become in and of itself the means to the end. What the Bible is, however, is the very base means by which my mind may being to change and conform into the image of Christ, and the tool by which I might come to know the all-knowing Creator God of the universe.
The Bible is not for our information, but our transformation.
-D.L. Moody
I went to youth group last Wednesday. So what? I went to church this Sunday. So what? How will those two hours in confrontation with God's word affect the rest of my life.
God cares about us knowing Him, which is only done through His Word, yet so many times for me, simply reading words on a page became the means to the end instead of engaging with the living God.
hm. I hope this wasn't heretical...
1 comments:
Matt,
Heresy? I think not. The unregenerate man can read and memorize scripture but without the Holy Spirit to help him to interpret it the Word means nothing to him nor his soul. Yet without the Word he has not hope and changing is mind and coming to the Christ he may think he knows but does not. His mind has not changed so his thoughts are the same and his actions remain self-seeking. The unbeliever, as the believer can as well, read the bible for the same reason he can wear a cross or go to church on a regular basis. It all looks the same but Christ will one day say, "I never knew you, away from me." While the believer and unbeliever can both do the same things and they look basically the same the believer strengthens in faith in God by spending time in His Word. "Apart from me you can do nothing". Jn 15:5 While reading the Bible may not change you every time you read it, not reading it will certainly make the believer fall further and further away from his Creator. Not reading about God the believer is now not only ignorant of what God wants but of the devices of the evil one puts before him. Kind of like you can drive your car for only a certain amount of time passing every gas station but eventually you will run out of gas. The born again regenerate man must be re-charged by the reading of the word, the source of the power of God. With the Word the Christine is without direction, hope and faith. Ephesian chapter 6 tells us it is the power of God, the sword, it cuts to the bone, through the outer shell to the core of the problem. The Word pulls no punches, it hits square on the chin. The believer needs that power in the face of a never sleeping foe. No, reading your Bible won't make you a spiritual giant over night but not reading it will keep you from any spiritual growth at all. No one who grows in their faith did it apart from the reading of the Word.
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