"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Psalm 51:10
"Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Psalm 119:105
As we think about the reasons that we read and study the Bible, I want to remark on a quotation that many of you may have read or heard before. There is an acrostic of the word Bible which highlights that the word Bible could be listed out as "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth." While this quotation has an admirable point to it, I also believe that it can easily be misunderstood.
As I have presented in a previous blog post, the primary reason for our engagement of the Bible is to know and believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that, by believing in His name and His work for us, we may have everlasting life. And that is where I have come to believe that this acrostic fails. It seems to point us to things that we do, and not to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
Yet, at the same time, we cannot discount the basic assertion of the acrostic. Truthfully, the Bible does indeed say a lot about the living out of our lives. However, I do think we need to make this point very clear. We align our lives to what God says after God has acted to make us His people. We don't start our conversations about faith or life without first realizing that we are who we are because of what God has done for us in Jesus.
As people who receive the work and benefits of Christ, the Holy Spirit then begins His work in us of creating a new heart and a right spirit. And that's where the word of God in the Bible enters in. That new heart and right spirit search God's Word of the Bible to see what such a life looks like. In that regard, the Bible becomes the lamp to our feet and the light to our path. We do so, not because it makes us more worthy of what God gives, but because it demonstrates our love for a God who would do such things for us, and to then begin to love our neighbors, that they also may come to know this God, and what He has done for them.
So God's Word in the Bible does indeed form our lives. But it does so as a response to God's gracious working and action in Jesus. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that it is improper for us to enforce the form of our lives upon those who do not share our faith. That would be trying to get someone to form their lives around things that they do not believe, which is something we Christians often complain about when others attempt to do the same to us. We may see how society around us isn't in line with the form that God designs, but the aim isn't to change their behavior. It is, rather, to work that God might create a new heart and a right spirit within them, so that they then form their lives according to what God has designed.
"Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Psalm 119:105
As we think about the reasons that we read and study the Bible, I want to remark on a quotation that many of you may have read or heard before. There is an acrostic of the word Bible which highlights that the word Bible could be listed out as "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth." While this quotation has an admirable point to it, I also believe that it can easily be misunderstood.
As I have presented in a previous blog post, the primary reason for our engagement of the Bible is to know and believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that, by believing in His name and His work for us, we may have everlasting life. And that is where I have come to believe that this acrostic fails. It seems to point us to things that we do, and not to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
Yet, at the same time, we cannot discount the basic assertion of the acrostic. Truthfully, the Bible does indeed say a lot about the living out of our lives. However, I do think we need to make this point very clear. We align our lives to what God says after God has acted to make us His people. We don't start our conversations about faith or life without first realizing that we are who we are because of what God has done for us in Jesus.
As people who receive the work and benefits of Christ, the Holy Spirit then begins His work in us of creating a new heart and a right spirit. And that's where the word of God in the Bible enters in. That new heart and right spirit search God's Word of the Bible to see what such a life looks like. In that regard, the Bible becomes the lamp to our feet and the light to our path. We do so, not because it makes us more worthy of what God gives, but because it demonstrates our love for a God who would do such things for us, and to then begin to love our neighbors, that they also may come to know this God, and what He has done for them.
So God's Word in the Bible does indeed form our lives. But it does so as a response to God's gracious working and action in Jesus. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that it is improper for us to enforce the form of our lives upon those who do not share our faith. That would be trying to get someone to form their lives around things that they do not believe, which is something we Christians often complain about when others attempt to do the same to us. We may see how society around us isn't in line with the form that God designs, but the aim isn't to change their behavior. It is, rather, to work that God might create a new heart and a right spirit within them, so that they then form their lives according to what God has designed.
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