Personal, habitual Bible reading, saved my life. There was a time in my walk with God, around
about my teenage years, when I relied on the euphoria of meetings (that meaning
the emotional experience that comes from attending church), and the attraction
of the “youth group” social atmosphere to keep me from falling. Personal Bible reading was a practice, but it
was not habitual, and it did not influence my life. Really it was more of “have to” thing, than a
“want to” thing. Please let me pause for
just a moment and say that I am not against church or the gathering of youth,
only that, like Martha in the scriptures, when you begin to put secondary
things primary……problems arise.
Blessings and emotion that come from attending church are the byproduct
of a strong spiritual experience, but not the very experience itself. Likewise, the social experience that comes
with spending time with your brothers and sisters in the faith is beneficial to
your walk with God (I believe); however it is not the bread that will sustain
the spiritual man. Due to the fact that
meetings and “hanging-out” were the pillars that supported my house of cards, I
frequented both, testifying and preaching not to save the lost, but because it
was “what we did”. However, if you could
put an x-ray on my spiritual man, you would find a heart that burned with but a
little flame……So, why am I bringing this up?
I believe that many Christians today are in this same or rather
similar condition. Salvation is not in
the social, nor is it divorced from it.
What brings about solid soldiers for the cause of Christ is…..no
surprise here, a commitment to God, specially speaking in this tract a commitment
to God’s Word. A commitment to taking
time for it, to studying it, and to living it.
If this is done, I believe it will “iron out” a lot of the fringe issues
that plague the Church- i.e. church attendance, relationship incompetence,
gossip, clicks, church participation, decline in evangelism, watered down
preaching, pride, politics, etc. Not
only that, it will do more for the Church than we probably can imagine. The Word of God saved my life; and the lives
of countless others. The Word
strengthens the inner man, the inner man is the individual, and the individual
is the Church. If your inner man is
strong, the Church is strong, if you’re inner man is weak, the church is weak.
“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I
will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain
descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house;
and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” (Matthew: 24-25)
God wants a personal relationship with you, and with me; and
through that relationship, he wants us to have relationships with one another. The fellowship with the Father increases our
fellowship with one another, not the other way around. Jesus was the Word and the Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us. He was the
messenger when we hear him, we hear God.
He speaks the will of the Father;
through the vehicle of the Holy Ghost, and when you get the Holy Ghost
inside it will open the scriptures to you and teach you all things (1 John
2:27). But we have to read them, we have
to hear them, we have to do them; or the house will not stand. So I ask you, as I ask myself: What are we emphasizing in our own
lives? What are we standing on? What are we stressing to those that come
behind us? Not with our words, but with
our lives.
Jesus said:
“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the
flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and
they are life.” John 6:63
The Word of God
saved my life.
