Today in the western world and in much of the Body of Christ there is a crisis that has happened and is still happening. We have seen the devastation of legalism on the human heart through the fruit of a hell fire and brimstone message. This type of message although it was truth, came across as a human effort trying to help people stay pure. Rebellion to the message of legalistic holiness was countered with what I’m calling a cheap grace message. Cheap grace is a subtle but destructive message that perverts the true grace of God empowering us to live in sin and compromise as though God doesn’t mind. The Church in this hour is not in need of a message that gets us off the hook. What it does need is a clear understanding of what I am going to call happy holiness. In this Mini-Series I am going to be covering the idea of you and I living before God and Man on the Straight and Narrow.
In the Book of Matthew chapters five through seven Jesus lays out line by line Christianity 101. He walks us through the idea of a New Covenant lifestyle, dealing not as much with the outward but the inward. He talks about what a Christian’s heart should look like and what his new outward actions and reactions to this present age should be. Our outward reaction is now called to come from an inward condition. Matthew chapter seven and verse’s thirteen and fourteen say this;
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it”.
Here Jesus lays out the basic premise that the way you and I enter into eternity is through a narrow gate as opposed to a large wide one. Today more than ever before we see our culture inviting us to enter into a so called eternity though a wide door that includes many eastern and humanistic ideas of empty and vain religions. The word “many” that Jesus uses in this passage is a word that is translated majority. Jesus is telling us that the majority of humanity even folks who call themselves Christians will travel the busy, wide, easy road to a eminent destruction. As beleivers in Christ who are looking for a city who’s builder and maker is God we have need of this wise counsel. In the Gospel of Luke chapter thirteen and verse twenty-four Jesus uses the word strive when He says this, “strive to enter the narrow gate”. That word strive is a word that is translated fight, or contend. These are not words of ease and passivity asking us to enjoy our liberties in Christ but words that should provoke great thought and concern in the hearts of hunger beleivers. So many today in the Church are calling this narrow gate that Jesus Himself calls humanity into a path of legalism and a cumbersome load that we shouldn’t have to bare. The goal of this life in my opinion is not trying to see how close we can get to the fire of sin and compromise and still love God. Many would call that idea, you and I enjoying our liberty in Christ. If that’s what were going to call liberty in Christ I don’t want anything to do with it. That liberty leaves me dull, disconnected and board in my relationship with this Beautiful Man.
In my upcoming posts I am going to talk more about the straight and narrow, cheap grace, a permissible Gospel and how we live in this present hour. Those are in no specific order. Until next time…..
This is a list of some prayers that I pray as I sit before The Holy Spirit and The Word. I hope they help you in your journey of reading The Bible.
Holy Spirit I thank You that You live in me. Its for my good that You have come, and I ask today that You help me comprehend that which You want me to hear from Your Word today.
I take The Word Of God and set it before me like a giant block of ice, and I ask that You, Person Of The Holy Spirit, that You would blow upon this block of Ice and refresh me this morning. Breath on me through the written Word.
I ask that You create an umbilical cord from the Word of God into my heart today, so that as I read You would supernaturaly fill my heart with understanding concerning the Scriptures. Connect Your Word into my life today.
I thank You that Psalms 119:11 says ” thy Word O Lord have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against You.” I ask today that You would place Your Word in my heart in such a way that I would not sin against You. Fill my heart with Your Word that when I preach its just Your Word that comes forth. When I pray its just Your Word that comes out. Your Word in me, changing me from the inside out. Let Your Word come from the inside out.
I thank You that James 1:5 says ” you would liberally give me wisdom if I asked in faith”, so today I ask in faith that You would fill me with wisdom beyond my years and my education. Fill me with the wisdom of God for the situations in life.
Today I lay hands on my mind and I quote Romans 12:2 saying ” be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”. I ask today that you would renew my mind as I place it before Your Word. Break into my mind today with your Word so that it produces change again from the inside out, that I may prove Your will to the earth around me.
I hope that some of these are helpful to you as we endevor to become students of The Word.
In the last part of this mini-series I am going to cover how I actually read my Bible. After setting my Bible on my lap in the morning, I take a few minutes and talk with The Holy Spirit who lives in me as a means to slow down my mind, and position my heart in such a way that I can receive from the Word. I then ask the Holy Spirit several things that I am hoping for as I read. At this point with my pen in hand I am ready to begin my daily journey reading the Scriptures. For this last part I have a scripture for doing what I do when it comes to the reading of the Word. Revelations chapter one and verse three says;
“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the Words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near”.
Now before you saying anything I know that this passage is speaking directly about the Book of Revelations but I have taken it and applied it to the entire Word of God. What I mean when I say that I have applied it to the entire Word of God is that I read the Bible 99.999 % of the time out loud. I find that when I read in my head or silently I have a hard time staying on track and my mind can often wander to the point that I quickly forget what I just read. So not only does it help me to stay focused while I read but I am using more then just my mind to interact with the Word. It allows the Word to go also through my ears so that I understand in my mind what I’m reading but I also hear it through my ears.
I have read the Bible this way for approximately 7 1/2 years and it has helped me to not be just a hearer of the Word but a doer. This method has enabled me to absorb more of what is being said allowing it another point of access into my life. As weak humans attempting to love an invisible God we need as much of the Word getting into us as we can get. So, reading out loud doesn’t only take place in the privacy of my house but everywhere I read my Bible. That means airports, airplanes, restaurants, Jiffy Lubes, Church, the bus, Jen’s Beauty College and anywhere else that my journey takes me. This style of reading has impacted in me in a way that I see no changes in the future. I want my heart to receive from the Word anyway it can. And whatever it takes I want to make the attempt to make it happen.
So this concludes my mini-series on The Spirit And The Word. I will be posting one more that will have several prayers I pray before and during my reading of The Bible. Thanks so much for reading and I hope the thoughts and prayers impact you and draw your heart into a greater relationship with The Scriptures.
I have been away from the Internet world for a little while since I have been working and spending some time with family. So I am excited to give you the second to the last part of this little mini-series. I hope you have enjoyed the series so far and I believe that this one and one more will be beneficial for your relationship with the Bible.
I have heard many people talk about writing in their Bible’s from both a positive and a negative perspective. Some feel that it is defacing God’s Word when we mark our Bible’s and others feel its a critical part of Bible reading. I believe that a dirty Bible equals a clean life and a clean Bible equals a dirty life. Now I hope you don’t take that to an extreme although I do believe there is truth in the statement. For me, I can hardly stand reading my Bible without a writing utensil. I love to mark in my Bible what I am reading and keep track of dates and special occasions as the years go by. For this portion of my series I have no scripture to build this upon only personal preference.
Many use High-lighters, pencils, pens and markers or anything else they can get their hands on. I personally have come to be fond of ball point pens that don’t bleed onto the following pages. I have found that Highlighters tend to leak over through the other pages as well as fountain pens. My Bible has what’s called onion pages so they are very thin. Marking my Bible is a very important thing to me, so much so that when I say its hard to read it without one, I am not kidding around. Before I read I will look everywhere for one and go to great lengths to find one. Its very important to me to keep track of what I’m reading and have some way to chart it and place it in areas that I can find again. I most always use along with a pen my computer. Its a rare day that I read my Bible without my computer near by so that none of my thoughts get lost. I have built several files and files under files of thoughts, ideas and seeds for the present and the future. I have a collection of things that I have discovered through the written Word that have become precious to me. i would encourage you if you don’t already to start witting in your Bible and marking the things that you read day in and day out. The thing I most often do when I’m marking my Bible is circle the thing that stood out to me. Then I draw a line from that circle to the index or the margin and I start writing. I draw the line from the subject to the circle so I can connect my thought to the passage. I also write the current date at the end of whatever chapter I stop on. So if I read Act chapter one, two and three I would put today’s date at the start of Chapter four. I do this so I know where I left off which enables me to pick back up again where I stopped. have found over the years that this helps me realize how long I’ve been away from the Word and challenges me to remain faithful to it.
Once again, these thoughts are my own, and only suggestions to you as you build your relationship with the Holy Scriptures. In the last part of this series I will cover how I read my Bible.
Often times when we approach the Bible or the place of prayer its difficult to get our minds to slow down so that we can interact with the Spirit in us to comprehend the Word. I have found the art of slowing down to be vital in my relationship with the Bible and prayer. Not that I am always able to slow my mind down but over the years I have learned to fix my mind and heart upon the Spirit in such a way that I am no longer thinking about all the things I have to do today and I can be a student before the Creator. There are a few things that I do, and a couple of scriptures that I use to do this. We want to make sure that when we read we don’t treat the Bible like any other book, or just a good story. We want the Spirit of the 66 books to break into our minds in order to transform our hearts, thus changing how we act through our bodies. This is the Word’s purpose in humanity. The role you and I play, is getting our minds to a place where they slow down enough that the Word starts to wash us on the inside.
Psalms 131 and verse 2 says;
“Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
This scripture doesn’t say that his soul just calmed itself, or someone else calmed it, but that he calmed and quited his soul. Some people have told me that this is new age behavior but I strongly disagree. In this fast paced society God hasn’t changed his Nature. It takes time for you and I to unwind before Him so that He can communicate with us. Before I read the Bible I take a certain amount of time and I lay hands on my Bible and I begin to talk with the Spirit. Quietly, I acknowledge Him, I talk with Him like a person. I wait on Him and bring my mind into subjection to Him so that when I read its not in vain but actually produces something in me each time. This takes a little bit sometimes but I try not to move on from here until my mind has slowed down so that I can take in what I’m about to read. I say to The Spirit, “the letter kills but You bring life! Bring life into my mortal body now.” In this process praying in the Spirit if you are Spirit filled is another way that the Spirit breaks into my mind helping me to set my gaze on Him.
I believe that if you are able to slow down your mind in such a way that is allows the Spirit to impart from The Word that your time in the Bible will drastically change. This process begun from a sincere desire to grow in the scriptures and to have a life rooted in the Word of God. I hope that you are able to glean a thought or two and they help you in your own journey. A few more thoughts to come.
