March 13, 2023
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I was on the road again so it had to be a fast food lunch. You know, I keep the nutrition guides from several of those fast food places, even if "fast food nutrition guide" sounds like an oxymoron. I try to think calories before I order because my food too often goes from a moment on the lips to forever on the hips. Interesting thing about the food we eat, the same meal can turn into fat or turn into energy. It depends on what you do after you eat it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Reading the Bible, Missing the Point."
If you exercise, what you consume turns into energy, right? If you don't exercise, it turns into you know. Well, actually, that's how it works with spiritual food, too. Many of us are consuming a lot of Bible input. We're full of sermons, recordings, CDs, websites, radio programs, and Bible studies. But we're just accumulating information. And God has a lot of spiritually overweight children because we don't do anything with what we're learning.
But when you read what God says about His Word to us, it's clear that the purpose of reading it is to change things in your life, not just to know things in your head. Joshua 1:8, our word for today from the Word of God is a good example. Speaking of His Word, God says, "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."
Notice, when you read something from God, it's supposed to show up in three places. First, in your mind. "Meditate on it." The Hebrew verb here suggests a cow chewing its cud; going over it until you've chewed the meaning out of it. Now, this isn't just gulping down a couple of verses like spiritual vitamins. And it isn't about how much you read. It's about how much you let God's words read you. Sometimes it's better just to read a few verses two or three times, ask yourself questions about what it means and how it should affect something you're doing.
Then, God's Word is supposed to be in your mouth. What helps you make it real is putting it into words to someone else, and saying to them what God said to you in His Word today. Each day, you try to share with someone what God communicated to you through His Word that day. Ultimately, God's Word is supposed to be, not only in your mind and in your mouth, but in your life. We meditate so we may be, in Joshua's words, "careful to do everything written in it." You're not supposed to just factualize what God says, you're supposed to actualize what God says by consciously putting it into practice in some part of your life today. You are reading to change!
So, as you read, ask yourself two questions: "What is God saying here?" And then, "What am I going to do differently today because He said it?" God's Holy Spirit knows all about God's Word and all about your life. Each day ask God to show you how to bring those two together. Each night, before you go to sleep, you should be able to measure a specific difference in your day because of how you put into practice something God told you through His Word. Here's something that will help you do that: keep a Jesus-journal. That's just a notebook where you put into words what God said to you and what you're going to do differently because He did. I've been keeping one of those for years - it's been one of the greatest boosters to my spiritual life I've ever had. See, what you're doing is you're turning spiritual nutrition into energy and growth instead of just spiritual fat.
This is the road to something better than that roller coaster faith that you get from basing your relationship with Christ on Christian events and spiritual highs. This is the road to following Jesus consistently, each new day. I know that's what your heart's been hungry for. It's about getting a life, not just getting a high, because you've graduated from just reading the Bible for information to reading it for transformation.