Conversion is a gift and an achievement. It is the act of a moment and the work of a lifetime. You cannot attain salvation by disciplines - it is the gift of God. But you cannot retain it without disciplines. If you try to attain salvation by disciplines, you will be trying to discipline an unsurrendered self. You will be sitting on a lid. The result will be tenseness instead of trust. "You will wrestle instead of nestle. . . ." Discipline is the fruit of conversion - not the root. . . . So we take and try; we obtain and attain.
[Jesus] did three things by habit: (1) "He stood up to read as was his custom" - he read the Word of God by habit. (2) "He went out into the mountain to pray as was his custom" - he prayed by habit. (3) "He taught them again as was his custom" - he passed on to others by habit what he had and what he had found. . . . No converted person can live without those habits at work vitally in his life.
I know two brilliant Christians who come to the daily morning devotions without their Bibles. They can meditate, they say. They are both shallow. For they mediate God to themselves through their own thinking - they become the medium. They do not go to God direct as they imagine - they go through their own thinking; they become the mediator.
Dr. Howard Atwood Kelley. . . says of reading the Bible, "The Bible vindicates itself because it is such excellent medicine. It has never failed to cure a single patient if only he took his prescription honestly." Take the prescription of the Word of God daily. No Christian is sound who is not scriptural.
When prayer fades out, power fades out. We are as spiritual as we are prayerful; no more, no less.
It is a law of the mind that that which is not expressed dies. If you don't share it, you won't have it.
The rule about confessing your sins should be, the circle of confession should be the circle affected by the sin.
Pray for those who have wronged you. That will be an antidote for resentment and bitterness. A theological professor keeps a car index of nasty letters he receives and prays for their writers every day. No wonder his spirit has an extraordinary sweetness. (pp. 281-285)
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. (John1:1-2)There are quite a few ways in which I do not take my Bible prescription "honestly." Jones points some of the big ones out well. First, I try to read my Bible before I am surrendered to God, before I am converted in some part of my life. Whatever I might hope to gain from Bible reading will only come when I am submitted to God and the good that he wants rather than my own agendas.
I must surrender my desires not because they are always bad, but because they are meant to align with God and his desires. Without that surrender, my Bible reading tends to serve rationalizations of my own desires and feelings. I do not see what God wants to show me, but only what I want to see. Such reading feeds inner arguments, justifies whatever I happen to be doing, and quenches the love from the Spirit for God and other people.
Insight from the Bible, like conversion itself, is a gift of God. It cannot be attained through raw effort, but must first be granted in grace. Effort comes after the gift because effort must work with the gift. Without that I will be "tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming" - starting with myself! (Ephesians 4:14) However, without discipline, the gift of the Spirit's illumination will not be retained.
One of the best ways to submit myself to God through the Bible is to develop a habit of reading and study. Without the habit, I quickly drift off into the reiteration of my own thoughts and feelings which, like manna, are sufficient for one day, but often will not meet the needs of the next. Also, I am tempted to try to achieve a feeling instead of understanding. Bursts of understanding bring pleasure, but by habit I do not allow such pleasures to guide my reading and study, but rather a continued choice to seek God through the Bible, whether pleasant or not, "deep" or not, or inspiring or not.
Another way to surrender is to bathe my readings and study in prayer. Asking and praising, talking and thinking with God must be habitual as well. Without such prayer, the whole thing of Bible study becomes a bunch of unrelated thoughts that are guided by my worries and lusts rather than my trust and worship. What I read or study in the Bible needs to be preceded by immersion in God's presence. What I find and enjoy in the Bible also needs to lead me into prayers of confession, thanksgiving, praise, and quiet.
Finally, reading the Bible leads to teaching and evangelism. I like Jones' expression that "it is a law of the mind that that which is not expressed dies." Evangelism is built into devotion to God and the Bible. "We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard" the apostles said before the Sanhedrin when told not to speak about Jesus or in his name. I find this is in contrast to what I have often thought evangelism is. It is telling what I have seen and heard rather than telling other people what I think they need to know. It is shared discovery rather than making converts.
In explaining what I have seen and heard through a prayerful reading of the Bible deepens my surrender to God. I find that although the Bible is right, I can be wrong. Even though I hear God, I may not always understand what he means. This calls for walking with God moment by moment, instead of trying to get a kind of knowledge that I can use on my own. Relying on God to reveal his thoughts through the Bible is helped by receiving it as a gift, making it a habit, bathing it in prayer, and seeking ways to share what I have discovered.
Lord, you sent the Word to us. You did not keep it to yourself, but because of the love and joy in you, your sent your message, Jesus. The Bible speaks faithfully of that Word and in many ways it is that Word to me. Help me to receive it as a gift wit humility and expectation. Amen.
One way I am learning to submit to God's word is to handle it carefully, physically as well as spiritually. By bowing my head or holding the Bible in my hands a certain way, I can be reminded of the great truth it contains and the great God it brings me to.
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