Yesterday and today I read my Bible a lot. I'm not saying that to sound like a good-old Christian boy, I am just saying that God led me to reading it a lot.
I think often times we truly, truly underestimate the power and truth contained in the Bible. It truly is God's Word. It guides, strengthens, empowers, and grows. It shows us how we need to change. It contains the mystery of the gospel of God and the greatest secret in the world. As Paul says in Ephesians and Colossians, the gospel was a mystery that was hidden for ages but then revealed to them, and it continues to be revealed to all mankind always, even us in 2008.
I love that most of the Bible God shows himself to us through narrative.
The Bible is also so powerful in it's description of love. Paul writes in Ephesians:
"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved."
Everything that God does flows from his love. I John states that GOD IS LOVE. He is the definition of true love. God is not love in the sense that we can define what love is and then push that on God, he is love in the sense that his nature encompasses all that is truly love and by that , by experiencing him through people and his Word and by his change in our lives, we know true love. We know love by experiencing true sacrifice, by seeing what Jesus did and why he did it. We know love by observing the Trinity interact in John. We know love by reading the pages in the Bible. We know love by seeing people love others. We know love by seeing anything good in this world. We know love by knowing God, we know God by truly receiving his loving transforming mercy and grace.
This isn't supposed to be preachy. It's what I've been thinking and experiencing. God is good. Run to his Word and be changed by it, and then help change other people's lives.
Andrew
