loving God's word

Another great devotional this morning from John Fischer, this one called Loving God Through His Word:

I think that sometimes, in our emphasis on the grace of God and our freedom from the law, we have a tendency to miss what is good about the laws of God. We lose our sense of reverence for the word and love for the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

True: we will never achieve the desired effects by trying to follow the law, but at the same time, if we love God, we will also love His laws. David loved the laws of God and meditated on them constantly. Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, is all about loving God’s laws. Christ came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. In other words, Christ embodied living according to the laws of God, so that if you truly follow Him, you will be fulfilling the law also. But nothing about the essence of the law has changed, only our relationship to it.

Take a moment and go read the rest of this devotional.

When I first came to Christ back in the days of the Jesus Movement and the Charismatic Renewal, I found myself surrounded by believers who loved to read, study, meditate on, and discuss the Bible. I thought that was the norm among believers. Sadly, that isn’t true. There are many who don’t love the Word enough to be in it daily, and they miss out on so much.

When I went through my period of rebellion, that time of slipping away from God that happened to me in the ’80’s and early ’90’s, the first thing to go was the reading of God’s word, followed immediately by ceasing to gather with God’s people. Why? Because close association with the word of God and with the church is convicting and uncomfortable for a believer who isn’t living right.

We’ve all seen the statistics about how many hours of TV a child will have watched by the age of 18 compared to how many hours that same child will have spent with his family. Alarming when you consider how much junk is on the tube. Now consider how many hours of our lives we are influenced by those who don’t know Christ compared to how many hours we are influenced by godly people. A couple of hours a week at church just won’t cut it if we want to live by Kingdom rules, by Kingdom thinking.

Remember this: the Bible contains the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. If you’re a Christian, it’s your operation procedure manual. It’s the primary way God speaks to His people today. While He does use visions, dreams, and prophecies to speak to His church, nothing He tells us through such methods will ever be contrary to His written word. It behooves us to measure everything else against the Bible and to live our lives accordingly.

I often hear people scoffing at the Bible, calling it irrelevant for today. This generally comes from those who have never read it, certainly not from cover to cover. They have heard that it says this or that. They’ve been told that this is what something it says means.

We live in a nation where, thank God, anyone can buy, own, and read a Bible. There is no law against it. So try it. You’ll like it.

-rlh-