Love The Word, Learn The Word, Live The Word

C. The Bible tells us how much God loves us, which should cause us to love Him. “For God SO LOVED the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). The Apostle John reemphasizes this by telling us that “God is love” (I John 4:8). Love is an essential characteristic of His nature.

D. The Apostle Paul wrote in Rom. 5:6-8: “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But He demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And it is in learning of His great love toward us that will cause us to be drawn to love Him in return. “We love Him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19).

E. The Psalmist said of the Word of God, “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103). The Patriarch Job said of God’s Word, “Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12).

F. So, we must love God’s word, through which He reveals Himself.

II. LEARN THE WORD OF GOD

A. We cannot love a God we know nothing about. Since He created humankind, God has been speaking His word to reveal Himself to us. We were created by God and for God, to know Him, to love Him, and to seek after Him.

B. To do this we must LEARN ABOUT HIM! The purpose of learning God’s word is to know God. We must obey Paul’s command to Timothy: “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15).

C. This is not just for preachers, but for all those who are His children. When I was a kid, I couldn’t eat breakfast without turning the cereal box around and reading what was written on it. I’ve had a library card since I was 5 or 6. I have over three hundred hours of university studies, but since God, through Jesus Christ, graciously revealed Himself to me, NO Subject – no study -- has been so engaging, so stimulating, so intellectually challenging, so emotionally rewarding, so spiritually thrilling, as the study of the Bible.

D. All other writings pale in comparison to the Bible. In it, we learn about the God who loved us so much that He came down to earth, to join Himself with humankind for all eternity by becoming a man – Christ Jesus, who said He was “...the way, the truth, and the life,” and that no one can come to the Father but by Him. (John 14:6).

E. As a former Hindu, I read and studied the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. In my pursuit of spiritual truth, I read the Lost Books of Eden, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, Mystic Christianity, and many others

F. But in the Bible, I learned that God and His Word are the same. We learn that His Word is His authority, and His Word is Him. I’m reading John Cooper’s “Awake and Alive to Truth.” In it, he quotes theologian John Frame as saying, “God’s Word (is) His speech. It is an essential attribute, inseparable from God’s being.”