The Eternal Survivers

The Piercing Word

4 Reasons We Must Not Disregard God's Word - Excerpt from Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul by R. Kent Hughes (HT Crossway)

The Piercing Word of God

I was twelve years old when I came under the knife of God's Word. The cuts went deep, deeper than blood, as they cut my soul in gracious surgery. I was cut with the clear understanding that though I was an outward son of the church, I was not a son of God. The other cut that the knife brought was the conviction that Jesus Christ was God and that he had died on the cross for my sins.

My pastor directed me to read John 1:12 and Romans 10:9-10. And as I read, the lights came on. It was as if the marrow of those verses were sucked off the page and into my soul. I did believe! Thus began my experience with the penetrating power of God's Word. It has cut me untold numbers of times since. But each pain, responded to, has brought a fresh, satisfying healing.

All Scripture is, as Paul has said, theopneustos, "breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16). It is the very breath of divine reality. There is nothing like it. Hebrews 4:12-13 give us four reasons we must not disregard God's Word:

1. The Living Word

The writer of Hebrews directly warns that God's Word is alive, saying, "The word of God is living and active" (v. 12a). It lives because it endures forever (Psalm 119:89). Even more, it lives because it has life in itself. God is "living" (3:12), and the Word, as God's breath (2 Timothy 3:16), partakes of God's living character. It is alive!

The character of the Word's aliveness is that it is "active," or as that word is sometimes rendered, "effective." God's Word vibrates with active, effectual power as it rushes to fulfill the purpose for which it was spoken. As Isaiah 55:11 so beautifully says: "so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

Indeed, the Word of God is alive and effectual! It does what it promises to do. It regards neither age nor education. It can change you if you are twelve or 102. If you will listen to God's Word, it will change your life. This truth is both a promise and a warning to all of us.

2. The Penetrating Word

God's Word is not only living, but penetrating, as the next line so clearly states: "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow" (v. 12b).

What we have here is a poetic statement of the power of God's Word to pierce the human personality to its very depths. God's Word can cut through anything and bring conviction.

God's Word cleaves through our hard-shelled souls like a hot knife through warm butter. Certainly we Christians find this to be true in our lives. There are sections of God's Word that cut through all the pretensions and religious facade, leaving us convicted.

When God wills it, his Word will pierce anyone. The soul safest from God's penetrating Word is never the unhappy hearer, but those who, though hearing, never hear and never resist. Tragically, many of these are regular church attenders. The true hearer wittingly or unwittingly invites the divine surgeon to do his gracious cutting.

3. The Discerning Word

Having established that God's Word is living and penetrating, the writer adds, "discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (v. 12c). The root word for "discerning" is the word kritikos, from which we derive critic. So the emphasis here is on the discerning judgment of "the thoughts and intentions of the heart". The heart is the seat of human personality. It is hidden from all. Yet God's Word sifts through its thoughts and attitudes with unerring discrimination.

"The sword of the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:17) will tell us what is in our hearts. Fellow-believers, if we really want to understand ourselves, we must fill our souls with God's Word. God's Word–read, meditated upon, and prayerfully applied–will give you brilliant discernment and profound self-knowledge. James indicates that God's Word functions as a mirror revealing who and what we really are (cf. James 1:23 24). This gift of self-knowledge is no small grace because when we grasp something of the serpentine ways of our hearts, we are disposed to cast ourselves even more on God's grace. And that is no small grace! The wise Christian invites the penetrating, discerning work of God's Word in his life.

4. A Reckoning God

Verse 13 gives us one of Scripture's great descriptions of God's knowing: "No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

God sees everything. This can be discomforting if we have something to hide. "The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good" (Proverbs 15:3). The psalmist likewise witnesses, "You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence" (Psalm 90:8).

This is sobering truth indeed. But the metaphorical language that follows makes God's knowing absolutely terrifying for those who imagine they can avoid his gaze: "All are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account." "All"–everything–everyone–is stark naked before him. There is nothing to hide in or behind. All creatures are in the grip of God, totally vulnerable, and helpless.

Blessed be the double-edged sword of judgment and sanctification. God cuts us deeply that we might die. God cuts us again with his Word that we might live.

Starving Ourselves to Death

From The Poached Egg

(Click image to enlarge)

From Book to App

Do you read the Bible on your phone or pad? If so check out this interesting piece by Tim Challies- The App of God.

The Bible is not a book. I know we talk about the Bible as if it is a book. I know we praise God for giving us his book. I know we tend to buy our Bibles from book stores. But it’s not a book. Not really. We’ve confused the nature of the thing with its form.

The Bible is a collection. It is a collection of all that God meant to communicate to us through inerrant and infallible words. The apostle Peter describes it well: “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). God spoke, men wrote. Men wrote the exact words of God exactly as he breathed them out. Over 1,600 years they wrote them as histories, as letters, as prophecies, and as poetry. They wrote whatever he spoke until he stopped speaking.

What should be done with all of these writings? The answer was obvious: They needed to be collected and combined to form a canon, the complete works of a single author. In Moses’ day the Bible was words spoken and memorized and passed along through oral tradition. In Jesus’ day the Bible was a collection of scrolls. In Paul’s day the Bible was that same collection of scrolls with handwritten letters added to it. But in every form it has always been the Bible.

Today we know the Bible as The Good Book only because for the past few centuries the book has been the dominant medium through which we encounter it. But it has not always been that way, and will not always be that way. As the dominant medium has changed, so too has its form. Today it is The Good Book, but before that it was The Good Codex and before that The Good Scroll.

Now here is why I tell you all of this: The Bible transcends form. It transcends media. Not only that, but whatever the form, whatever the media, it has proven dominant. The reason we have such confidence that it has been faithfully transmitted through history is that it has been so widely copied and disseminated in every form.

Not too long from now the Bible will transition from being The Good Book to being The Good App. As information migrates to digital media, the Bible will make the shift, just as it as has through every other literary media. But through our little glimpse at history we know that we have nothing to fear from the appification of information. Since the dawn of the printing press, the Bible has been the most dominant book. We have no reason to doubt that in time it will prove the dominant app. And when apps have had their day and we move to whatever is next, the Bible will remain and will dominate.

As one medium gives way to another, we do well to remind ourselves of what the Bible really is. Not a book, but something far better, and far more transcendent. It is the enduring words of God himself.

One Thing To Do

If you could do one thing this year that is guaranteed to radically change your life for the better, would you do it? Check out The 1 Spiritual habit You could Begin Today that will Change Your Life Forever by Kyle Winkler::

Losing weight, getting more education, and managing debt and stress top the U.S. government's list of most popular resolutions for a new year. Certainly, self-betterment in things such as health or finances is a noble goal. But issues in these areas are often mere symptoms of an underlying spiritual condition relating to whom or what we each believe we are—our identities. Consequently we use money, education, work and so many other things as means to define ourselves and steer our own destinies.I'm convinced that Satan loves to trap us in an endless cycle of "strategies" for self-improvement. In doing so, he keeps us on a treadmill where we consistently exert much effort, but get virtually nowhere. At the end of the week, month or year, too often we're in the same condition in search of yet another regime in which we can find purpose and meaning.

Ultimately Satan's strategy is to fill our minds with other voices that detract from the voice of truth that identifies us with Christ: a new creature (2 Cor. 5:17), righteous (2 Cor. 5:21), chosen (Eph. 1:5) and accepted (Eph. 1:6). Satan knows that identity gives way to purpose and mission. That is, when you know who you are, you know what to do. So if he can confuse us about the former, then we'll be on a never-ending search for the latter.

There is, however, a single, simple spiritual method that Jesus used when faced with similar issues. And you too can apply its power in the same way to begin to silence the enemy, build confidence in your identity in Christ, and thus, change your life. Let's explore.

Jesus' Temptation Is Ours Too

At His baptism by John the Baptist, as Jesus arose from the water, the heavens were opened, the Spirit of God descended upon Him like a dove and the Lord spoke:"And a voice came from heaven, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'" (Matt. 3:17).

Jesus's baptism account marks the first time recorded in Scripture that God publicly spoke an identity upon Jesus. Freshly baptized, God declared Him to be His Son. And even further He assured His Son of just how pleased He was with Him.Immediately following, the Bible records that Jesus was sent out into the wilderness, where after 40 days of fasting, He was famished. Here, at His weakest moment, the devil came to tempt.

The Word In Community

"The gospel word and the gospel community are closely connected. The word creates and nourishes the community, while the community proclaims and embodies the word."

— Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church  (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 55

HT: Of First Importance

Worth The Reading

This is part one of two posts by John Piper at the Crossway Blog: - 10 Benefits of Reading the Bible

The All-Surpassing Worth of God’s Word

Consider with me just ten of the benefits [of reading Scripture], and as you read them, ask God to give you eyes to see the worth of Scripture and to waken in you an unyielding desire for the Word of God. This is a fight for joy, and the weapon is a fresh sight of how the worth of God’s Word surpasses all things on this earth.

1. The Word of God Awakens and Strengthens Faith

The Holy Spirit does not awaken and strengthen faith apart from the Word of God. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). The reason for this is that the Spirit has been sent into the world to glorify Christ. But Christ would not be glorified if the Spirit wakened faith in the absence of the revelation of the glory of Christ in the gospel.

“When the Spirit of truth comes,” Jesus said, “he will glorify me” (John 16:13-14). If the Spirit brought us to faith in the absence of the proclamation of Christ in his Word, our faith would not be in Christ, and he would not be honored. Therefore the Spirit binds his faithwakening ministry to the Christ-exalting Word. Which means that when we go to the Word of Christ, we put ourselves in the path of the Spirit’s willingness to reveal Christ to us and strengthen our faith. And in this faith is the taste and the seed of all our joy. Therefore, the Word that wakens our faith works for our joy.

2. Through Hearing the Word, God Supplies the Holy Spirit

The Spirit of God produces both a subconscious influence bringing us to faith, and a conscious experience of power and personal fellowship that come through that very faith. This explains two things: 1) This is why the Bible can speak of the Spirit blowing where he wills and having merciful effects in our lives before we were able to choose them (John 3:6-8; 6:36, 44, 65). In other words, by his unconscious influence he works in us to enable us to hear and welcome the Word. And 2) this is also why the Bible speaks of the Spirit coming through our hearing the Word of God. In other words, conscious fellowship with the Spirit is given when we hear the Word of God with faith.

3. The Word of God Creates and Sustains Life

Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). To that end he taught many things, and then gave his life so that we might have life, eternal and abundant. We are born again into new life by the Word of God. “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God. . . . And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Pet. 1:23-25). God makes the preaching of the gospel the occasion for creating new life in the soul of man. “The words that I have spoken to you,” Jesus said, “are spirit and life” (John 6:63). Therefore when John had finished recording the words and works of Jesus in his Gospel he said, “These are written so that you may . . . have life in his name” (John 20:31). The words of John’s Gospel—and all the Scriptures—lead to life.

Oh, how easily we are deceived into thinking that better life, or more life, comes from things that lure us from the Word. But, in fact, it is the Word itself that gives us life abundantly. The life we get from bread is fragile and short. The life we get from the Word is firm and lasts forever.

4. The Word of God Gives Hope

In more ways than we can imagine the Word of God gives and strengthens our hope. We get a glimpse of how many ways the Bible gives hope when we hear Paul’s astonishing assessment of the Old Testament alone: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). Not just part of the Old Testament, but all of it—“whatever was written in former days”— was written with the divine design to give us hope.

One of the things this teaches us is that we have not begun to know all the ways it is possible to get hope. We have very small experience in life compared to God’s wisdom.

Sometimes what we need from the Bible is not the fulfillment of our dream, but the swallowing up of our failed dream in the all-satisfying glory of Christ. We do not always know the path of deepest joy. But all Scripture is inspired by God to take us there. Therefore Scripture is worth more than all this world can offer.

5. The Word of God Leads Us to Freedom

Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The truth of God’s Word works freedom in many ways and brings joy in all of them. But Jesus signals his focus in verse 34: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” The freedom he has in mind here is freedom from the enslaving, destructive effect of sin. The truth sets us free from this. So Jesus turns this truth into a prayer in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Sanctify means to make holy, or free from sin.

The guilt of sin would bring down the wrath of God on us if the truth of the gospel did not set us free from condemnation through the blood and righteousness of Christ.

This excerpt was adapted from When I Don't Desire God: How To Fight For Joy by John Piper.

Dangerous Weariness

The Last Word is Blessing

God’s last and effective word is His blessing:

The secret of the promise is the bearing of the curse so that the blessing may prevail. The gospel is that in Jesus Christ the curse has been set aside and God’s creative purpose for the blessing of his creation is established beyond any possibility of reversal.

God’s last and effective word is his blessing. It is a particular word spoken in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, broadcast by those who like Paul cannot but pass it on, so powerful is its effect, over flowing with blessing from those who, blessed by it, become a blessing to others.

— Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), pages 35-36

HT: Of First Importance

Fired Up From Meditating

Love this! "Warm Yourself at the Fires of Meditation" from Desiring God:

We were made to meditate. God designed us with the capacity to pause and ponder. He means for us to not just hear him, but to reflect on what he says.

It is a distinctively human trait to stop and consider, to chew on something with the teeth of our minds and hearts, to roll some reality around in our thoughts and press it deeply into our feelings, to look from different angles and seek to get a better sense of its significance.

The biblical name for this art is meditation, which Don Whitney defines as “deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer” (Spiritual Disciplines, 48). And it is a marvelous means of God’s grace in the Christian life.

Meditation Made Christian

Since we were made to meditate, we shouldn’t be surprised to find that world religions have seized upon the activity, and new schools try to make use of its practical effects, whether to cultivate brain health and lower blood pressure. Christian meditation, however, is fundamentally different than the “meditation” popularly co-opted in various non-Christian systems. It doesn’t entail emptying our minds, but rather filling them with biblical and theological substance — truth outside of ourselves — and then chewing on that content.

For the Christian, meditation means having “the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). It is not, like secular meditation, “doing nothing and being tuned in to your own mind at the same time,” but it is feeding our minds on the words of God and digesting them slowly, savoring the texture, enjoying the juices, cherishing the flavor of such rich fare. Meditation that is truly Christian is guided by the gospel, shaped by the Scriptures, reliant upon the Holy Spirit, and exercised in faith.

Man does not live by bread alone, and meditation is slowly relishing the meal.

Meditation Day and Night

aybe it’s the multiplied distractions of modern life, and the increased impairments of sin’s corruption, but meditation is more the lost art today than it was for our fathers in the faith. We are told, “Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening” (Genesis 24:63), and three of the more important texts in the Hebrew Scriptures, among others, call for meditation in such a way that we should sit up and take notice — or better, slow down, block out distractions, and give it some serious consideration.

The first is Joshua 1:8. At a key juncture in redemptive history, following the death of Moses, God himself speaks to Joshua, and three times gives the clear directive, “Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:6, 7, 9). How is he to do this? Where will he fill his tank with such strength and courage? Meditation. “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8).

God means not for Joshua to be merely familiar with the Book, or that he read through sections of it quickly in the morning, but that he be captivated by it and build his life on its truths. His spare thoughts should go there, his idle mind gravitate there. God’s words of instruction are to saturate his life, give him direction, shape his mind, form his patterns, fuel his affections, and inspire his actions.

The Word More Desired Than Gold

Francis Chan on Why the Bible should be "More to Be Desired Than Gold":



Francis Chan - "Why We Need the Bible" from Crossway on Vimeo.


HT: Strawberry-Rhubard Theology

What to Neglect, What to Let

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col. 3:16 ESV)

Want to have a rich life? There are some things you will have to neglect, and some thngs you will have to let in in order to have one. Joe Bloom at Desiring God had this to say, based on Colossians 3:16

This verse from Colossians is so full of nourishment that there is no way to put the whole thing in our mouths at one time. It’s going to take a few blog bites to chew on it.

Today, all I want to do is chew on the first word: “let.” Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Another way to say it is, don’t stop the word of Christ from filling you to satisfaction. Or stop stopping it.

Here’s the thing: we are frequently impoverished spiritually by our own not letting ourselves be rich. On our shelves or bed stands or in our tablets or computers is a bank vault of “true riches” (Luke 16:11). But the pawnshop trinkets of worldly words are deceptively attractive. We can even be on our way to spend our time (the currency of life) on the riches in the vault and end up spending it in the pawnshops along the way.

What Paul wants us to do is neglect things that make us poor and not neglect things that make us truly rich.

What to Neglect

If the word of the Wall Street Journal or World Magazine or Wired Magazine or David Brooks or David Letterman or David McCullough, or John Mayer or John Steinbeck or John Paul II or John Calvin or Richard Dawkins or Richard Branson or Richard Baxter or Bono or Bach or blogs (even this one) dwells in you more richly than the word of Christ, you’re poor. You might be impressive at a dinner party or around a conference table or at small group. But you’re poor. You’re storing up dust.

You don’t need to be in the know.

You don’t need to be admired among the literati or respected in the guild. You don’t need an impressive net worth. You don’t need to be well traveled or well read. You don’t need to be conversant in Portlandia or know how many Twitter followers Taylor Swift has. You don’t need to be politically articulate, or up on the mommy blogs or the young, restless and reformed buzz. You don’t need to see the movie. You don’t need to read the novel. You don’t need to look hip.

What Not to Neglect

But what you desperately need, more than anything else in the world, is the word of Christ dwelling in you richly.

No one speaks like Jesus Christ (John 7:46). He is the Word of God and the Word that isGod (John 1:1) He is the Word of Life (1 John 1:1) and when he speaks, his word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) and he shows you the path of life (Psalm 16:11) and his words give you hope and joy and peace (Romans 15:13).

Jesus is the one human being in all of history who speaks the very words of eternal life (John 6:68) and when you listen and believe his word, it becomes your life (Deuteronomy 32:47), your food (John 6:51), your drink (John 4:14) and your light (Psalm 119:105).

Only Jesus has the words of life. Only him. That’s why the Father pleads with us, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7).

Everyone else’s words are dust in the winds of time and to chase them is to chase the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14). The precious few helpful, enlightening, even mortal life-preserving words are only of superficial help to us and in the end will blow away.

The only exceptions are those that help us (and others) listen to the word of Christ.

Let It!

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Don’t neglect it. Listen to his word. Soak in his word. Memorize his word. Eat and chew it slowly. Don’t stop it from benefitting you.Neglect the TV, blogs, social networks, video games, theaters, magazines, books, hobbies, chores, and pursuits that keep you from the Vault. Neglect the impoverishing pawnshop trinkets of words that will turn to dust in a day, a week, or a few years.

When it comes to life, time really is money. Time is how you spend your life. Don’t waste it. Spend your best time buying “true riches.”

The Need to Hear It

Interesting article on the preaching ministry of Martin Luther (before and after 1517) at The Anxious Bench. It concludes:

...The sermon became the centerpiece of Protestant worship, and it remains so in many contexts. At the same time, few Protestants retain Luther’s theology of preaching. Luther would have little stomach for the entrepreneurial world of American Christianity, in which individuals without any ecclesiastical ties or theological training found new churches. Nor would Luther — despite his own translation of the Bible and his own devotional and academic study of the scriptures — agree that it is most important for people to study the scriptures on their own or in small-group Bible studies. They need to hear the Word proclaimed and expounded upon, and not just a sentence or two, as is increasingly common. There is, moreover, an enormous gulf between Luther’s world and ours, and perhaps today Luther would open a coffee-house ministry or, more likely, a tavern. Today, churches try harder to “reach people where they are.”

Luther sympathized with every generation’s complaints about sermons, that they are too long, too boring, and not relevant. He noted the problem of snoring during church, and he said that one of a minister’s most important qualification was “that he know when to stop.” Indeed, the belief that human beings could step up to the pulpit and serve as the mouthpieces for the eternal Word of God is, humanly speaking, rather foolish. Most people in the pews (or theater seats) recognize that basic foolishness as they praise or criticize a sermon on the basis of its entertainment, humor, or edification. In his final sermon, Luther preached that God “did not make his gospel known to the wise and understanding, but to infants and children.” He closed with a call to “shut our eyes altogether, and cling only to Christ’s Word and come to him.”

Protestants do not necessarily need better preachers or a dethronement of the sermon from its place at the center of their worship services. Instead, we need a Lutheran expectation that God’s Word will manifest itself through the “fleeting breath” of human beings and that through sacraments and sermon, the Word of God will make clear to us the promises of the gospel.

Read it all at the link

Bigger

"How did the Lord heal me? The way that he always heals: the word of God got to be bigger inside me than I."

- From Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

See also My Train Wreck Conversion

Take Heed

.....Also works for women and old men.

Drip....Drip....Drip

"The nature of water is soft, that of stone is hard; but if a bottle is hung above the stone, allowing the water to fall drop by drop, it wears away the stone. So it is with the word of God; it is soft, and our heart is hard, but the one who hears the word of God often, opens his heart to the fear of God."

  -Quote from  Abba Poemen, excerpted from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, page 183, 162

Let It Read You

"As you read God's Word allow it to read you!" - Jim Wideman

The quote above is from the Facebook page of my old friend and college classmate Jim Wideman, one of the recognized gurus of children's ministry in the USA. You can also follow his ministry at Jim Wideman Ministries.

Created by the Promise

"The church was born by the word of promise through faith, and by the same word is nourished and preserved. That is to say, it is the promise of God that makes the church and not the church that makes the promise of God. For the Word of God is incomparably superior to the church, and in this Word the church, being a Creature, has nothing to decree, ordain, or make, but only to be decreed, ordained and made. For who begets his own parent?"

    - Martin Luther,

Quoted in Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church, page 15

Take and Eat

Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart,
for I am called by your name,
O LORD, God of hosts.

                       (Jeremiah 15:16 ESV)

Let the Lion Roar

"The word of God is like a lion. You don't have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let it loose & it will defend itself."

 - C.H. Spurgeon