This morning I came across a prayer in a book I’m reading called Invitations to a Journey: a Road Map for Spiritual Formation that I’d like to share with you.  So here it is:

“God of our creation and re-creation, you who are constantly at work to shape me in the wholeness of Christ, you know the hardness of my being that resist your shaping touch.  You know the deep inner rigidities of my being that reject your changing grace.  By your grace soften my hardness and rigidity; help me to become pliable in your hands…may there be a melting of my innate resistance to your transforming love.”

So God, “Help me to become pliable in your hands.”  I trust you and want you to do a transforming work in my life.

Tommy

So what should it be?  Should Jesus be #1 or the center of our lives?

As a teenager I can vividly remember a pastor saying that Jesus should be number one in our lives.  After that should be family, etc.  He went on to say that if Jesus was truly #1 then everything else would be fine.  If God is #1, then your family life would work, and so on.  All of that made sense to me at the time, but can your family life be horrible even though you have a good relationship with God?

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Through the pages of Scripture God allows us to see how He created the world, worked in the lives of people, and sent a savior to take the punishment for our sins.  Simply, the Bible allows us to learn what real love is all about.

So I would say that I view the Bible as God’s Word.  This encompasses several things, but is ultimately built on the idea that a real, all-knowing, all-powerful, and personal God wants to encounter us.  He wants to meet with us!  How crazy is that?  He wants to show us love and redeem us unto him.

Our view of the Bible is important.  If we truly see it as God’s Word, then an important question needs to be asked.  Is that view reflected in our lives?  Remember spending time in God’s Word is not about checking something off of a list of rules.  It’s about meeting with and hearing from a God that cares about us and wants us to know him.

So how do you view the Bible?

Tommy

How do you view the Bible?  What kind of words or metaphors come to your mind?  Have you ever thought about it like this before?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Later this afternoon I’ll share some quick thoughts and my background to approaching the Bible.

Tommy

There’s an interesting story in Luke 12:13-21 where a man comes to Jesus and asks him to tell his brother to share his family’s inheritance with him.  Jesus quickly responds by saying “Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?”  But the story doesn’t end there.  Jesus uses this man’s comment as an opportunity to further teach him and the crowd around.  He begins with a warning and his main point.  In verse 15 he says, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.” (more…)

Each morning I try to spend some time focused with the Lord.  Trust me it doesn’t always happen, but it did today.  Before I spend time reading the Bible I always make it a priority to pray.  It’s not a long prayer.  It really isn’t that complicated.  It’s simply a prayer asking God to reveal something to me.  Something that I need to hear.  Something that I need to learn.  Something! 

In my time with Him this morning He revealed something to me from Deuteronomy 30:15-16.  Here’s what it says (bold words are my emphasis):

“Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. ¹⁶ For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. (more…)