A repost about His Word follows:
Spirit-filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They believe with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with a fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the fire of God.
~Samuel Chadwick (1832-1917)
“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
~ Revelation 2:2-5
A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.
~Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471)
Many of us have read G_d’s word for a long time. We call it, altogether sincerely, The Good Book. We have read it with reverence and even believe it to be the very Inspired, Authoritative Word of G_d. We try to apply it’s principles in our day-to-day lives. We know how important it is. We know that it communicates the Vital message of the Gospel. We even become somewhat comfortable with the worn, but beautiful, paths we walk through as we read the psalms, prophets, or epistles. And in our own way, we’ve begun to feel like we are beginning to understand the Bible. We even use it as the standard against which we judge our culture, and the actions of people around us. And all this is good.
And in one moment… everything changes.
Suddenly, His Spirit jack-hammers through our intellectual grasp of His Word. Actually, He has probably been hammering away through the layers of flesh and soul for some time. Perhaps we just didn’t notice it. So, suddenly, we open up the Book, begin to look at the words and gasp!
It’s Him.
He’s been there all the time beloved. The words are not about Him, they are of Him. They are that which is of G_d which He has chosen to reveal to us. He is devastatingly beautiful. Perfect in aspect. Glorious to behold. We don’t know whether to weep or dance or laugh or kneel… So, we just kind of come apart in some wonderful breakdown… only wondering why we never saw it before…
Oh, thank you Jesus. Thank you.
It’s as if some infinitely sharp knife has just sliced asunder all our pre-conceived notions about the whole book. And through the cuts His Spirit enables us to discern these self-same words that we’ve read for years in ways heretofore unknown.
They are about Him. All about Him. They are Life and Love and Purpose and Power.
And as our brains quickly lose any prospect of understanding the flow of His truth into our spirits through the now Spirit-driven Words on the page, we give way to the Love behind His Words. We begin to light up with the Light that is lighting our path. And suddenly we realize something… We love Him. We love Him with everything we are. How it happened, we don’t know (surely it was not from inside ourselves), but we love Him now both truly and fiercely.
Something tells us that we should never leave this place. That to do so would be like tossing a precious jewel off a cliff just to watch it sparkle through its fall to the earth below. Also, in staying here, the Words that seemed important before take on an aspect of desperate cruciality in our existence.
Said more simply: His Word drives us to Love Him more each day, and in loving Him more – we come to more fully love His Words to us.
Delicious!
I can’t wait to spend the reaches of eternity,
Mining the riches of God’s Word.
