Caution: God’s Word at Work

I can’t believe I got stuck in my garden again without my cellphone! I was doing so well. I’m glad that my physical condition is better. I was able to scoot along the fence and then crawl to the back door of the garage and then scoot on my bottom until I got to the garage door opening. My neighbor Tim was coming out of his house and helped me into  my wheelchair and was able to get my power chair out of the garden and back into the garage. He made sure I had his cellphone number for any future help.

I received a call from my Aunt Margaret. She was updating the contact list for Her “Kings Daughters” Missions group at Calvary Temple in Denver. Now that she is 92 and has coordinated this effort for 40 years she is turning it over to some one else. This group is a real blessing to missionaries and their families and provides an opportunity for people to make more of a personal connection to missionaries. I know our Teen Challenge ministry has been blessed by the The Kings Daughters.

BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12

This familiar verse of the Bible is found in a chapter and section that addresses the disobedience of God’s people at they moved from Egypt to the Promised Land. If you examine the surrounding verses you find warnings to not “harden your hearts” as that exodus generation did. Because of their rebellion and disobedience that generation of the Exodus did not enter into the “rest” that the Lord had promised.

The writer of Hebrews tell us that the true place of “rest” God has prepared for His people is a heavenly place of rest that God has prepared for those who love Him and have received forgiveness of sin through faith in Christ. That is the rest we are to strive to enter and to be on guard against the type of disobedience that proved to be a stumbling block to the exodus generation.

Hebrews 4:12 follows the warning against disobedience and precedes the statement that everyone is exposed to the One to whom we must give an account.

With all of that as the context we see the power of God’s Word to “reprove, rebuke, exhort and to give training in righteousness.”  (2 Tim 3:16) God’s Word can lay us bare and cut to the heart of the issue of our life. Our job is to respond to those  warnings and to “line up our life to God’s Word.” As we do that it will keep us on track and on the right road to God’s “place of rest” the true Promised Land called heaven.

For the past 30 years or so I have made it a practice to read through the Bible each year. (I actually finished early in 2013, so my hospitalization did not make me miss my goal.) I usually read a different version each time. What I find though is that “as I read the Bible, the Bible reads me.” I will often see a verse standing out to me that didn’t arrest my attention in the past. I ask myself, “why is that?” My answer to myself (or perhaps from the Lord) is the realization that each time I am at a different place in life and my spiritual journey. Talk about a different place in 2013 and 2014! I encourage you to consider the discipline of reading through the Bible each year. It can be done in about 5-10 minutes each day. Let me know if I can help.