Discerning the Word

Word of God speak
Would you pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your Majesty.

To be still and know
That You’re in this place
Please let me stay and rest
In Your Holiness.
Word of God speak. 

Mercy Me  “Word of God Speak”

The Bible is the #1 best seller of all time in the world with no other book even close.  In fact it continues to be the #1 best-seller each year of all books.   Estimates are that 2.5 billion to 6 billion copies of the Bible have been sold.   Why is this when it seems so many dismiss it as being irrelevant.   Read these combined passages from John 1 and Hebrews 4. 

In the beginning was the Word.  The Word was with God and the Word was God.   God’s Word is alive and working and is sharper than a double-edged sword.  It cuts all the way into us, where the soul and the spirit are joined, to the center of our joints and bones. And it judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts. (John 1:1, Hebrews 4: 12).

The Bible is more than a book on the best seller list.  It’s alive, God breathed, knows us and reaches into our innermost being.  It is powerful, it is eternal, and it provides true life.  It is the Word.  No wonder it dwarfs any other book in sales, because we are not dealing with a book but the embodiment of God Himself.

When the Word is understood as being God, being alive, and being something that judges our thoughts and feelings a different view is revealed.  Instead of me examining the Word it is examining me.  How can I stay in tune and discern this awesome, amazing Book?  Instead of just reading the Word, approach it with reverence and see it as holy.  This is a spiritual experience to be taken in with all my senses.  Spiritual listening with the heart attuned to the Spirit’s leading.   Be open and aware expecting something will be revealed, inviting an encounter with the Word God and the Word Jesus Christ.  When I enter in this posture the Word speaks.  More than reading the words it is holding them, touching them with my senses, and feeling them while being led by the Spirit.  Take it as bread and drink hungering and thirsting for its righteousness.  Ingest it tasting its goodness and receiving its nourishment.  It is through this sensory experience of taking in the Word that we experience God.  It is so powerful and so personal that with His Spirit in us we cry out “Father”!  (Romans 8:15)  A deep yearning with deep feelings, a call of affection, of help, of submission, of assurance of the knowledge He is there and He is fully with me.  This is a new way of thinking of and seeing scripture.  It is God Himself.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. (Hebrews 5:13-14)

This approach and understanding of the Word does not come easily and requires effort, attention and practice.   After you have spent time reading scripture try to be quiet.  God Himself said through the Psalmist: “Be quiet and know that I am God.”  Not just being silent but quieting your mind.  Not thinking about yourself, others, work, play, school, kids, parents, nothing.  Your mind is quiet.  Open, listening, meditating on staying quiet yet alert to the revealing of God through His Word.  Being quiet is an acquired skill that requires practice and consistent attention.  Over time the fruit of this exercise is an amazing delicacy of revelation.

Discernment of the Word is like the Emmaus story where the two disciples’ eyes are opened to recognize Jesus and know the “resurrection” was in fact true.  He is in the flesh, and in front of them.   This is the journey to see the Word for what it is: Jesus Christ as God Himself and the realization of the kingdom.  As I read the Bible I want to make it about me, about my comfort, my success, my prayers being answered, and many times my glory.  My awakening and the true revealing of being in tune with Scripture is the realization that it is about God the Father, about His glory, and His promises of true life which is a perfect relationship with Him and His son Jesus Christ.  Until I look to Him, and view all from the perspective of seeking, asking, knocking, looking, listening, and longing so that I can know Him, I will miss the reality of life in Christ.  The disciples, apostles, and those who walked with Jesus spent days, months, and years with Him.  Yet they did not understand who He was or what He offered until after He was killed, raised, and then appeared to them. 

Lord open my servants eyes and let him see.  II Kings 6: 15-17
Teacher I want to see.  Mark 10:51

If His own disciples misunderstood who He was how do I find Him?  I must stop all that I am “doing” and be still, silent, fallen before my Father in heaven, completely submissive and say here I am.  I trust Him and allow Him to transform me and show me what the true life and abundant life is really about.  Communing with God, discerning His Word, following His Spirit’s leading allows me to know Him.  Being present in the Word, listening, seeing, hearing, and knowing His voice when it comes is from my Father.  I bow in worship, I thank Him and He is glorified.

Father, thank you for your Word that is beyond our comprehension.  Give us wisdom, discernment and understanding.

Scotty Elston
Shallowater, Texas

Love According to Peter

Most any conversation about love will bring to mind the famous love chapter, First Corinthians chapter thirteen.  It is indeed a beautiful statement about the importance of love and what mature love looks like.  

There are other texts that provide powerful teaching about love that often go overlooked.  First Peter 1:22-25 is one of those texts.  It teaches us about the kind of thinking and habits that sustain mature love.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.  For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,

   “All people are like grass,
   and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
  the grass withers and the flowers fall,
   but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

   And this is the word that was preached to you.

Love doesn’t simply sneak up and grab us.  Mature love takes action on our part.  How often is our personal comfort zone the starting place for how we love people?  Peter’s starting place for understanding love is the gospel and obedience to the same.  He says we should love like Jesus loved because:

• We have been purified by obeying the truth of the gospel. 
• We were born again of incorruptible seed, the word of God. 

Point?  Something happened to us when we came to Christ.  We came under the power and influence of the gospel.  As such, being born again marries us to the gospel’s style of love.   

How does Peter describe love?

It is sincere.  The greek word (anupocritos) means “without hypocrisy”.  We should not be phony or disingenuous in how we engage people.  He accents it further by saying that love should be “from the heart.” 

Fraternal affection (philadelphos).  This is the kind of love families share within a family unit.  Christians are brought together in God’s family.  We care for each other like members in a close human family care for one another.  What a beautiful picture! 

Fervently.  The greek word (extenos) means to “stretch out the hand.”  It implies earnestness, going after something purposefully and with intensity.  The Message translation reads, “…love one another as if your lives depended on it.” 

Our natural inclination is to think about love and to give love according to how our subjective filters work.  We’ve all done it.  Do I like them?  Do I think they like me?  Have they been mean to me?  Rude?  Ignored me?  Discriminatory?  Arrogant?  I don’t think I have the gift of love for that person.  “The gift of love?”   Peter says we have the calling to love - not the gift of love.  In fact he later points out some of the things that congest our ability to love and plainly says….”get rid of them!”  Mature love takes work.(2:1-2).    

Love comes with the territory of our calling in the gospel.  As we are presented opportunities to love other people we know we are "growing in the Spirit" when we think about what we need to do in a given situation from the vantage point of our life in the gospel.  Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

Father, loving the way you love is hard.  We can’t do it on our own.  Condition our hearts to your kind of love as we come to see ourselves as people of the gospel.  Awaken us each day to the powerful truth of what the gospel means and what it means to live in it as those called through your Son.  Amen.

Randy Daugherty

Stephenville, Texas   

Lessons from an Autograph Book and a Science Test

Words are powerful and life-changing. They can teach, bless, inspire, challenge, give direction or warning, provide hope, shout “Hallelujah,” whisper “Come unto me,” say “I love you” or proclaim “I am with you always.” They can also encourage or turn people away.

One day each semester, I write “Barnabas Day” on the board in my Lifetime Wellness classes, and without fail my thoughts take me back 36 years to the inspiration for the assignment.  Although my teachers wouldn’t remember, nearly forty years later, I can recall the distinct handwriting, color of ink, and their exact written

words…

It was common at Happy Valley Elementary to have friends and teachers sign an autograph book at the end of the year.  I had the same likeable sixth grade teacher as mygifted brother, and looked forward to seeing what he would write in my autograph book.  *I will preface what he wrote by saying that math was a subject I had to work really hard in and my grades were pretty inconsistent  (a nice way of saying,  “not so bueno”). * To make a long story short, I flipped through my treasured book at home and found my teacher’s remark.  It said, “World’s Greatest Math Student???”  To have received those words from someone you really respected was a tough and embarrassing blow! 

Fast forward one year: I had just completed my first year of playing basketball for the Stanley Spartans Jr. High team.  I had a fun science teacher and on the top of one of my tests, he had written a message.  It said, “17 points in the Cage Carnival game!  Wow!!” 

And there you have it:  two of my favorite teachers writing a message to me in their own handwriting.  One was inspiring and one was devastating. 

I know firsthand how written words can leave a mark; therefore, I share the story of these two teachers and challenge my students to bless someone they care about with words in what I coined as a “Barnabas Note” on “Barnabas Day.” I specify that the note should be in their own handwriting and not typed, texted, or emailed to their recipient.  You see, I know, and I am sure you know, how special it is to receive a card or letter from someone who took the time to hand write a message.  In fact, one of the reasons ACU appealed so much to me was receiving handwritten letters from my future basketball coach, Burl McCoy, and some of the ACU boosters who had never even met me such as Dewby Ray, Ruby Guy, Chic Owen, and Annette Mossman.   

So, will you take the challenge and write a “Barnabas Note” to someone this week?  We can’t let the real Barnabas have all the fun encouraging people!  Words of Life, words of Hope give us Strength, help us Cope.  In this world, where e'er we roam, Ancient words will guide us home.  –Michael W. Smith

Deonna Shake

Abilene, Texas