A Clarion Call – Part 2
In the last days…men will be lovers of self, lovers of money…disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy…without self-control…haters of good, treacherous…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. Avoid such men as these…who…captivate weak women weighed down with sins…always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth [2 Timothy 3:1-7].
Time alone with Jesus, as He speaks to us in His Word and we speak to Him in prayer, is the lifeblood of the new life. We Christians cannot survive spiritually apart from personal relationship with the Lord Jesus.
The Bible is the Word of God, the words of Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit inside the Christian leads us in reading the Bible, so that we understand what God is telling us. With the natural mind alone we will understand the Bible only in terms of our own experiences and learning. We will miss a good deal of teaching because the Bible is Spirit and it is truth. It is not the natural man and the flesh.
As we spend time alone with Jesus every day, reading His Word and talking to Him in prayer, we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His worldview becomes ours. Our understanding of reality is viewed through the eyes of eternity, as seen from the very throne of God Himself. We are transformed by the renewing of the mind, you see.
I had the pleasure, the blessing, the marvelous grace of God, to be born again in 1978, thirty-four years ago now. When I was born again, fellow saints volunteered their advice. It went like this: “Read this book. It’ll help you.” “Listen to this tape. It rocks!” “Go see this evangelist. He’ll open your eyes big time!” etc. etc. ad nauseum.
I was brought up churched and walked away from all that “religious stuff”. It took the Lord ten years into my adult life to get me to where I could actually turn to Him again. I’m to blame, not my parents or the neighbors or the church or the dog. But when I did turn to Him, the last thing I wanted was to choose a denomination or other group to join sides with in the fight for who’s right.
So I politely declined those well-meaning saints with their advice. I simply told them the truth. I didn’t want to read man’s words. Everybody insists he has the truth about the Bible. But the truth about the Bible comes from only one source, viz., the Bible!
This is why I now teach Rule #2 for Bible study: “The Bible is our sole and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.” So I explained that I didn’t want to read man’s books at all, until after I read the Bible all the way through first to see what it actually had to say.
And that is where we will stop today. A time alone with Jesus is in order now. See you tomorrow.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Genesis: Volume 1 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
Time alone with Jesus, as He speaks to us in His Word and we speak to Him in prayer, is the lifeblood of the new life. We Christians cannot survive spiritually apart from personal relationship with the Lord Jesus.
The Bible is the Word of God, the words of Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit inside the Christian leads us in reading the Bible, so that we understand what God is telling us. With the natural mind alone we will understand the Bible only in terms of our own experiences and learning. We will miss a good deal of teaching because the Bible is Spirit and it is truth. It is not the natural man and the flesh.
As we spend time alone with Jesus every day, reading His Word and talking to Him in prayer, we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His worldview becomes ours. Our understanding of reality is viewed through the eyes of eternity, as seen from the very throne of God Himself. We are transformed by the renewing of the mind, you see.
I had the pleasure, the blessing, the marvelous grace of God, to be born again in 1978, thirty-four years ago now. When I was born again, fellow saints volunteered their advice. It went like this: “Read this book. It’ll help you.” “Listen to this tape. It rocks!” “Go see this evangelist. He’ll open your eyes big time!” etc. etc. ad nauseum.
I was brought up churched and walked away from all that “religious stuff”. It took the Lord ten years into my adult life to get me to where I could actually turn to Him again. I’m to blame, not my parents or the neighbors or the church or the dog. But when I did turn to Him, the last thing I wanted was to choose a denomination or other group to join sides with in the fight for who’s right.
So I politely declined those well-meaning saints with their advice. I simply told them the truth. I didn’t want to read man’s words. Everybody insists he has the truth about the Bible. But the truth about the Bible comes from only one source, viz., the Bible!
This is why I now teach Rule #2 for Bible study: “The Bible is our sole and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.” So I explained that I didn’t want to read man’s books at all, until after I read the Bible all the way through first to see what it actually had to say.
And that is where we will stop today. A time alone with Jesus is in order now. See you tomorrow.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Genesis: Volume 1 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
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