Desiring the Word of Truth

“The Bible is not an end in itself,

but a means to bring men to an

intimate and satisfying knowledge of God,

that they may enter into Him,

that they may delight in His presence,

may taste and know the inner

sweetness of the very God Himself

in the core and center of their hearts.”

A.W. Tozer

This quote really got me to thinking- how often do I read my Bible just to check it off the list and say ‘done for today, on to the rest of my life’?

My desire is to know Christ on an intimate level, to feel His presence in my life when I’m not reading the Bible and when I’m not in church, to commune with Him all day long.  But I must confess, more often than not, I pick up my Bible to read, and I read it like a fiction novel.  I treat it as if there is nothing there for me, it’s just recreational reading.

Oh Lord, please forgive me! 

His Word is anything but recreational reading!  I must learn to prepare my heart through prayer and then read the scriptures so that I may- enter in and delight in His presence, and ‘taste and know the inner sweetness’ of Christ in the very core of my heart and soul!

No matter what your goal in life-be it a missionary, a wife/husband, a mother/father, a business owner, etc., Christ and His Word must be the center of your life.  How can it be the center of your life if you don’t read it and apply what it says? 

My pastor has an acronym that he uses –

Basic

Instructions

Before

Leaving

Earth

I know that too often I forget that the Bible is not just a history book, and it’s not just a glimpse into the future, it IS Life’s instruction manual.  God did not give us 66 different books compiled into one Good Book for it to lie on our shelves collecting dust. He meant it for us to use as a daily tool. 

In Ephesians, the Apostle Paul tells us that as Christians we are fighting not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against the rulers of darkness. One of the things he lists in our ‘armor’ is the Sword of Faith.

Think back to the middle ages, the days of knights and their ladies fair. A soldier did not go out into battle without a weapon, generally that weapon was always a sword, and a double-edged sword at that. Why? Because it would do double damage, it would cut coming and going. 

That is what the Word of God is. It is our double-edged sword. We face a battle everyday of our lives as Christians.  We cannot go into battle with our armor on, but no weapon. No soldier in his right mind would do that. We must arm ourselves daily with the Word of God, otherwise we will lose the battle.

May we be as Timothy when Paul was instructing him- May we “study to show ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth” (2 Timothy 2:15; editing and emphasis mine).