Sunday, September 13, 2009

A New Perspective on Scripture

I just had to put a little 'aha' moment on here that I had a few days back. It might be kind of a "duh" thing for some of you but I think many of us in our Christian walk have been in a trap of reading scripture with the wrong intent or thinking that it is there for us to see our sin and our shortcomings and to give us all the do's and don't's of life...only to make us miss what God is trying to reveal through it.
I have been reading a book that my husband recommended to me which is awesome and in it, the whole point of the book is to reveal the character of Jesus and also the unchangeable, unfathomable love of God toward us and how to get out of the trap of trying to earn his love. It portrays Jesus in a way that I haven't even seen before and it's been beautiful.
Well, as I've been reading through the passages the past few days, I have started focusing in on how God's word is revealing who He is, not who I need to be, because praise God through Christ I already am victorious, Amen?!? The Bible is all about our relationship with Him!! Nothing else! We are merely required to receive nothing less than His love for us and to have to do nothing more than accept that it has been accomplished through Jesus Christ. It is not a book that is supposed to give us a bunch of do's and don't's of life. It is a book to help us know our Abba, our Father, our Creator of Heaven and earth and to learn why we are meant to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. After all the whole reason He created us is for His enjoyment. He wants a relationship with us. And it is only through that relationship is when the doing starts. Yes, obedience brings blessing, but when we obey with the wrong motive, it does not reap the reward God intends. We are not to try to earn His love one more second, just receive, and then the "doing" will outflow from that...and I believe that is when God is going to do immeasurable more than we can ask or seek.
So as I read through scripture now, I will be zero-ing in on the character of God through it and underlining, writing down anything that describes my Abba, my First Love so that I can once and for all get to know Him the way He wants me to.
This is not a new lesson to some I know, nor is it to me, but I think if we implement it, it will change everything we stand for, hope for, and dream for in our walk with Christ.

1 comment:

Cindy Stokes said...

Go girl! Preach it! Amen! This reminds me of all I've been learning about parenting, and how it comes down to the intimacy of the relationship, and that all these "systems" for parenting are shortcuts that are really detours off in the wrong direction... just like the laws that came into place when God's people rejected relationship. From beginning to end, about relationship, and what happens if you walk away from that relationship.