Imagine you are a soldier in a foreign land far from home. Imagine you've been deployed for countless months maybe even years, you've been separated from your home and the ones you love. To put it in a way that we can understand it in modern day America... Imagine you are in Iraq or Afghanistan. Even with advances in modern day technology one of the easiest, most consistent ways for your friends and loved ones to contact you is through letters in the mail. Your family, your significant other, and your friends would send you letters in the mail telling you about what is going on back home, keeping you in the loop, telling you how much they love you and miss you... all providing an escape for your mind. For those instants while you are reading that letter you are transported to another world. You can hear the voices of your loved ones, smell you mother's cooking, hear you friend's laughter. They serve as an oasis. They may give you encouragement, strength, and hope to carry on; knowing one day you will be able to see them and spend time with them when you return home. You would cherish these letters. Savoring them, reading them countless times as you wait in great anticipation for the next one to come. You would probably keep them some place special, some place close to your heart. Maybe in your locker, maybe under your pillow, or maybe even on your person... under your helmet or in your shirt pocket. These letters would mean the world to you. When things would get hard and times would get tough, they would encourage you to finish the task at hand because something more awaits you. They would give you hope, the hope of returning home. You would read them, study them, memorize them.
The truth is we are all far from home because this world is not our home. We are all soldiers fighting a battle (and I by no means want to take anything away from people in the military, I am very thankful for this nations military and they are true heroes... I am merely using this as a metaphor). We do not battle a visible enemy but we battle Satan, demons,[a] and the very environment we live in... full of sex, pornography, money, cars, houses, and all kinds of other shiny, deceitful idols[b]. We fight the very flesh in which we abide. We war against our temporary spiritual capsule, this clay vessel, our body[c]. How can we relax when we are at war against the world which we live and our fleshly bodies that we live in? How can we go on? God sent us Jesus Christ to be our Savior. God gave us His Holy Spirit which lives inside of us. AND God sent us a letter from our home in heaven! The Bible. Oh how we should cherish this book. We should read it daily, study it, memorize it. Let it wash us, change us, teach us, convict us, strengthen us, and give us hope. We should keep it near to us.
I am going to try not to rant here, but I apologize if I am unable to control myself. When looking for/choosing a church home, choose one that teaches the Word. Not one that reads Bible verses here and there... one that immerses itself in the reading and teaching of the Bible. I prefer exegetical Bible teaching or when the Bible is taught verse by verse through an entire chapter and the teacher investigates the history and origins of the text (original language, ex Greek, Hebrew) and studies the historical and cultural backgrounds of the author, the text, and the original audience. This allows for a better understanding of the text. Topical teaching just doesn't do it for me and if you teach through the Bible every topic under the sun is going to come forth anyways so just let it happen in God's timing. Also Bible verses are a supporting network, meaning each Bible verse supports the verses before and after it. A verse can be pulled out of it's network and twisted to mean something different than the author intended. Thats why teaching the Bible as a whole is safe where as pulling different verses out to support a topic can be dangerous. Remember pastors and ministers are flawed people too. Keep it safe, stay in the Bible. When you choose a church, question #1 should be: Do they teach the Bible? Not how metro is the worship leader? Not do I like ambiance? The atmosphere may speak to your emotions but you need something that speaks to your spirit. Not how contemporary is the music or do I like the music... the music is not about you! As long as the music is God centered then its pleasing to God. You can turn on Hillsong, Skillet, Lecrae, Michael W. Smith, Kirk Franklin, or whatever it is you like when you get in the car or when you get back home. Do they teach and put emphasis on the living and powerful, eternally life changing text... the Bible.
"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
- Hebrews 4:12 NKJV
The word of God is alive. Its still applicable and practical today. It's still changing lives. Maybe the reason we have so many luke-warm Christians and luke-warm churches is because no Christians are reading their Bibles because no churches are teaching the Bible. The Bible will cut deep to the core of you (even more so than Baxter... Anchorman reference). It will pierce you. It's convicting. We are sinners, sometimes God has to reveal our sin so that it doesn't kill us. The Bible can keep you from sin or sin can keep you from the Bible. It won't always feel good to hear the word or read the word because it contradicts the message of the world and our flesh... but the fault lies within us not it. We need God to use the Bible to trim the fat out of our lives. It discerns and criticizes our thoughts and our hearts. I've heard it said that when you read the Bible, the Bible is reading you. I know I have terrible thoughts and I know I have a selfish and lustful heart. I hope through Bible, God will continue to change me! And I pray that you will read it and give it a chance that it/He may change you too! If you don't know God you can't love God. If you don't know God then how can He change you. Get to know Him, I urge you... read the Bible.
Footnotes
[a] "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,[a] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."
- Ephesians 6:12, NKJV
[b] "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever."
- 1 John 2:15-17, NKJV
[c]"For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"
- Romans 7:15-24, NKJV
No comments:
Post a Comment