I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. (Job 23:12)
I love you, O Lord. Therefore, I love your Word. Feed me on it.
The Bible is God’s Word.
Many voices deny this fact. They claim that the Bible is man’s book, not God’s book. They claim that the Bible is culturally conditioned and, thus, suspect when it comes to addressing people today. They claim that the Bible is full of contradictions or that the events it relates never happened. They claim that the Bible is cruel, oppressive to women, or sexually backward.
Today the various voices against the Bible are loud and occupy the seats of power within all cultures. The Bible stands as the most attacked and most censored book in history, and among the power brokers of Western culture, its ideas are roundly mocked and brushed aside.
But the Bible still stands as God’s Word. Despite the efforts to discredit and dismantle Scripture, it still changes lives, brings peace, frees people from sin, reconciles enemies, puts joy in the heart, and more. This is because the Bible is God’s Word.
The power of the Bible is not in the book on its own but in the God who stands behind it. The Bible has power because ultimately it comes from Christ and points to Christ.
For this reason, those who know God love the Bible. Indeed, one of the marks of genuine faith is a love for Scripture, for if you love God, you want to know what He says.
Unfortunately, however, too many who go by name of Christian have no desire to know what God says. They work their jobs, go to their schools, raise their children, eat, shop, play, and live life as if God has nothing to say about who they are and how they should live. They are so busy living life that they have no time to listen to God. They don’t even think about listening to Him. But they consider themselves good people (churchgoing people even) and, thus, Christians. This phenomenon is not Christianity. You do not see it in Scripture.
But most people in church don’t know Scripture. They don’t take time to read it, to meditate on it, and to learn from it so that they might obey it. And so they disobey it (all along thinking they obey it) because they love other things more than they love God. For if they had loved God, they would have taken the time to learn what He says.
The irony is that many of these people would tell you that the Bible is God’s book, but they live like the people who tell you that the Bible is man’s book. They somehow think they revere the Bible when in reality they pay scant attention to it.
God calls you to know Him, to love Him, and to obey Him. From the heart. And a heart that wants God, wants His Word.
