1. Spiritual Disciplines Series
April 05th, 2009
Bible Study
In high school I turned down an opportunity to make $500 in a night because of I had principles and was unwilling to dance at a club, I wouldn’t sell my body like that. So now rather than selling my body for $500 a night I sell it for $200 a month donating plasma. Those principles cost me a lot. One of the things I have noticed is that you learn some interesting things about people donating plasma. When people are donating plasma the color of their plasma is sometimes different. It is supposed to be pretty clear and often has a light orange-brown color. As I looked around I noticed that the clarity and color varied a lot. So I asked one of the people who worked there what made the plasma color different. It turns out that you can tell a lot about a person’s diet by the color of their plasma. Certain foods turn it a greenish color others turn it more brown. The lighter a person’s plasma the better hydrated their body is. I thought it was interesting that when looking at someone’s plasma you can really see how what a person puts into their body effects what comes out.
So let me ask you something: do you ever feel like you truly want to know Him but don’t really know how? Getting to know God can seem so complicated sometimes but it doesn’t have to be. Man is not an independent entity, the Bible calls us vessels. Vessels are designed to be filled with something. We were designed to fill ourselves with God but we sometimes stray from that design. Our lives are filled with one of three things: with ourselves, with God, or with Satan. Sin is essentially when we fill our lives with something other than God. What we put into our lives effects what we get out of them. Man is designed to be filled with God. So then it is important for us to learn how to do that. How do we fill ourselves with God while keeping out the subversive forces of our enemy and our own selfish nature? How do we fill ourselves with God?
If we want to fill our lives with God we need to invest ourselves in the Spiritual disciples. So for the next few weeks taking a break next week for Easter we are going to study Spiritual disciplines and the key aspects that we as Christians should invest our lives in. Our lives need more God and less us. When we follow Him, act like He acts, and obey His commands, we open the door for Him to fill our lives that we may become vessels of God. If we want to know God we have to be filled with Him and that takes more than one day a week. We cannot be filled with God simply by attending church on Sunday morning and doing nothing else. If the only dose of Him we get is on Sunday mornings then we cannot hope to be filled with Him. Consider your eating habits. Some people prefer to eat a few big meals a day while others are ‘snackers’ and will eat a little bit all throughout the day. Most people however, are not comfortable eating once or twice a week. Physically you probably wouldn’t starve to death if you ate once or twice a week but you would be able to really accomplish anything because you wouldn’t have the energy for it. The same is true in our Spiritual lives. When we are content being Spiritual fed once or twice a week we may not die but we are not healthy. By investing in the Spiritual disciples we enable ourselves to be filled with God by taking in the nature God. In order to know God we need the Spiritual disciplines.
Of all the things a doctor can have what would you say is the most important? (ASK) For me the most important thing a doctor can have is an understanding of medicine. I want to know that the doctor I go to knows what he is talking about because if he doesn’t know what to do to fix me no skill as a surgeon, no bedside manner is really going to matter. The most important thing a doctor can have is an intimate understanding of medicine. Just as a doctor should know medicine so Christians should know God. One of the most important ways to know God comes from investing ourselves in the training manual that He gave us in His word. Bible study is perhaps most important Spiritual discipline. Honestly if we truly want to know God where better to start than with the love letter He wrote us. The Bible is one of the key elements we must have to fill ourselves with God so that we may become His vessels.
The Barna group did a survey on Bible study and its results are heartbreaking. Only 18% of born again Christians claim to read the Bible every day. That is less than 1 out of 5. 23%, almost 1 in every 4 Christians admits to never reading the word of God. This is a serious problem. Effectively what these statistics tell us is that only 18% of born again Christian are even close to a healthy relationship with Christ and are getting their daily bread. We know Christianity is not about a religion or rules but a relationship. This is not say that these people who aren’t reading their Bibles cannot be saved or that they don’t have a relationship with God but the Bible is God’s primary way of communicating with us. What this shows us is that one of primary ways we can get to know God so that we can be filled with Him is being pretty commonly neglected.
Nothing can replace the importance of God’s word. The Bible is the food for our souls. It is vital to our lives. For in its pages are contained the words of God. In its pages we find life. They tell us of the law of God that we have broken. They tell us of the love of God sending His Son to redeem us from our sin. They tell us how to live our new redeemed life. What we need for life is found in the pages of word of God. It tells us how to live, how to find meaning, and most importantly how to know God. One of the greatest dangers facing the church right now is biblical illiteracy. So many are lead astray by false teaching because they don’t know the truth well enough to recognize a lie. Many of us don’t know the word of God like we should. If we don’t know it, how can we share with others? If we don’t know it how can we allow it to change our lives?
The study of God’s word is one of the most important spiritual disciplines. We must know the truth. If we don’t we can’t live it. We need to study the word of God but sometimes we misunderstand what that really means. We must develop a good habit of Biblical intake in our lives. We won’t see the word of God coming out of our lives unless we are faithful to put it in.
In Colossians 2:2 Paul shows us the importance of the word of God in our lives.
Col 2:2 My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, Col 2:3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Do you see Paul’s desire? He is wants the church to experience the full riches of complete understanding. It is important in our study of the word of God to do more than just read. Bible Study is not just about learning the words but about understanding what they mean because Bible knowledge by itself can be dangerous. Look at the problem that Jesus had with the religious leaders of His day. They knew their Bible front, back, sideways, and inside out. The problem was they knew the Scripture but they did not understand what they meant and it didn’t effect how the lived. Bible study is not just about reading it is about understand what is really being said. To understand Scripture you must read it in context
Did you know that you can make the Bible say whatever you want? If you pick and choose verses you can make it mean whatever you want so you can do whatever you want with it. You can make the Bible support gay marriage. You can make it support murder. Effectively if you ignore context then you can easily change the meaning of Scripture and miss the point all together. A friend of mine Shane Wood showed me this: I can even make say some terrible things: Let me show you:
Mt 27:5 Then Judas went away and hanged himself. Luke 17:31: “Go and do likewise.” And John 13:27- “What you are about to do, do quickly,”
That is all Scripture. Some of it is from the mouth of Jesus Himself. Is that what Scripture is saying? Should we go out and hang ourselves? No. That is terrible. To understand Scripture you must understand Context. That example is obvious in its error any time we take Scripture out of context it poses this same danger. Taking a passage out of context is like trying to use a computer after turning it off you have removed its power source. The problem is when we take Scripture out of context we make people promises from God that God never made. Then what happens when things don’t play out that way? Who do they blame? Not us for our flawed interpretation, they blame God. The example is a little silly but any time we take Scripture out of context it can do just as much damage as if we told someone the Bible says they should go hang themselves. If we do not understand the truth we are in danger of doing the wrong thing and believing it to be right. When we ignore context we make Scripture all about us and we change the word of God to fit with our lives rather than changing our lives to fit with the word of God. In order to get the truth of the word of God we have to understand what it is really saying and to do this we need context.
If the author of Hebrews had written the Hebrews 12:1 specifically to us then he would have been a very good pastor. His audience was experiencing persecution and considering walking away from the faith. They needed encouragement so what good what it do if he wrote them a letter that wasn’t even relevant for 2000 years? Do you see what I am saying? I am not saying that the Bible isn’t relevant to us or that it is a second hand love letter. The reason the Bible was canonized is that it is God’s inspired word for everyone and it is just as relevant and important today as it was 2000 years ago. What I am saying is in order for us to understand what God is saying to us now we need to have an awareness of what He was saying to His original audience and we need to read His words in the context that they were written. Remember we have the Spirit of God in us that will help guide us to the truth when we allow him to.
In many ways reading the Bible is a lot like reading a journal. You see these statements and emotions being expressed but in order to truly understand them you need to know what was going on when they were written. If you just flip open to some random page you feel lead to you may take what you see out of context. If you start at the beginning you learn the history that leads up to what you read so that you can understand the events. This is what we need to do with Scripture. What events lead up this point? What is going on at the time this was written? We need to fill in the gaps understanding Scripture as a whole and reading it in context.
When we read Scripture out of context we believe things, promises from God that are not true. Taking Scripture out of context ruins lives because when the promise that was not truly understood goes unfulfilled God’s faithfulness and even His existence and love are thrown into question. It is vital for us to understand not just the words spoken from Scripture but the context in which they are written because we cannot get something out the text that was not intended by the author writing it.
In Matt 4 Jesus says man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Do you ever think how many of us are trying to live on bread alone? How many of us go through every day without depending on God once? How many of us have days where we never even stop to think about God? I’ll be honest with you. I have days like that. I have had days where I got so focused on all the things I had to do that I never even thought to stop and to connect with God along the way. I have times where I even allow Godly things to get in the way of my time with God. Sometimes we forget the importance of investing ourselves fully in Him. The truth is if we are too busy to give God a few hours a day in the study of His word to fill our lives with Him we are too busy for our own good. I want to ask you think and I want you to carefully consider your answer. Do we really live our lives on a regular basis any different than those who have never heard the name of Jesus? Do we spend that much more time in the word than those who do not have access to a Bible at all? Do you realize the beauty of the Bible? It is not a chore. It is a tool for knowing God. We desire this connection with God and we reach out for Him. The bible is one of the ways that God reaches back. As we invest ourselves in the study of His word God reaches out and touches us. He connects with us on a personal level and we see His heart and experience Him. James tells us when we draw near to God that God draws near to us. What better way to be filled with God then to draw near to Him and watch as He draws near to us?
We are vessels meant to be filled with something. What we are filled with is a direct result of how we live our lives and what we invest ourselves in. If you want to know God you need to fill your life with Him. To fill your life with Him you need to practice Spiritual disciples, through understanding His word, prayer, obedience, and follow His example. You need personal Bible study. For God’s word is His revelation of His character to us. We cannot really know Him if we don’t know His word. We must invest ourselves in a relationship with Him we must fill our hearts with His word that we may begin to fill ourselves with Him.
