In the times before Martin Luther, the early
Christians did not have the printed bible. In our modern age, we not only have
the printed bible but we can have so many versions of the bible on our
smartphones, tablets and computers. We have such easy and complete access to
God's truth. We have God's written Word in our hands. We may memorize verses
and keep them in our heads. But it is an exercise in futility if God’s written and spoken Word does not become a Living Word
in our hearts and transform us from inside out. Our problem is not that we
don't know the truth - it is that we are not living out the truth. We forget
that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
As Christians we profess and preach about agape love but so
often we do not practice compassion. Our society is materially rich but we have
a famine of love. Jesus gave us a new commandment to love one another as He has
loved us. It is a love that comes from Him and is unlimited unlike our human
love which is limited. It is only with the love of Christ that we can treat
others with compassion and to love ourselves even with our imperfections.
The prophet Jeremiah gave us the following
promise of God:
“I will put my teachings inside them, and I
will write those teachings on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will
be my people. No longer will each person teach their neighbours or his relatives by saying, ‘Know the Lord.’
All of them, from the least important, will know me, declares the Lord, “because
I will forgive their wickedness and I will no longer hold their sins against
them.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)
Jesus died on the cross and rose from the
dead to fulfill the above promise. He opened the door for us to have a living
relationship with our Heavenly Father so that He may reveal His Truth and Love
for us. Jesus came to set us free from authoritarian leadership and to empower
us to live authoritative lives that are rooted in His Love. Jesus was crucified
by the Pharisees who saw him as a threat to their authoritarian leadership.
Unfortunately, we tend to make the bible our
god instead of using it as God’s instrument to draw us to repentance so that we
will come to our senses and return home to Him. We add the bible to the work of
God instead of letting the bible draw us to the grace of God and awaken us to
our self-centeredness and our need for transformation. We use the bible to judge
others instead of using it to share the good news of God’s Love.
The message of the cross is not a call to suffering but a
promise that we can find joy in suffering because we have Christ in us. The
bible is to help us to declare the praise of God and to trust Him for anything.
The bible is to remind us to thank God in everything. It is through trust and
thanksgiving that our hearts will be filled with the steadfast love of God. We
will then be set free from the fear of death and suffering so that we can
worship God in spirit and in truth in all circumstances.
The message of the cross is to bring us to God’s throne of
grace so that we can hear God speaking to us through His written Word. Prayer will then become the breath of our
life and our life will be our prayer. We
will not study the bible as worldly Christians to seek knowledge and spiritual
power. But as the children of God, we will read and reflect on the bible as
God’s Love Letter to us – to search for a promise to cherish, a commandment to
obey, a warning to heed, a temptation to avoid, a sin to confess or a nugget of
wisdom to share. As we do so, we will be led to Christ who is our Living Word,
our Light that shines in the dark times of our lives, our Provider in times of
need, a Shelter from the storms of life, our King as we live in this fallen
world, our Defender in our battle against evil and the Saviour and Lover of our
souls. 