JANUARY 2, 2020

“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.” 
― Augustine of Hippo

If Jesus didn't think he could handle life without knowing the Scripture inside and out, what makes you think you can?

- Timothy Keller

GENESIS 3-5

8Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”(3:8-10)

MATTHEW 2

19After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

JOURNAL 

The tweet put out by Timothy Keller got all kinds of backlash...people saying that this causes people to worship the Bible and use it for harm and saying that all that really matters is love and that Jesus was reading from the Torah and not the New Testament. So crazy how people can get so out of whack in their own thinking. To me this all smells of trying to defend the fact that they probably never have really read the whole Bible. My question is how can someone judge and question and challenge the authority of God if they have never really read the whole Bible.

It's like giving a book report on a book you haven't ever actually read. There are so many things in scripture that have troubled me, comforted me, puzzled me, convicted me...but in the end all of scripture together affirm my faith and educate me to an understanding of who God truly is...without this personal reading and study I truly feel I would be lost. 

Reading scripture is not an easy discipline, in fact most mornings I have no desire to read it. There are a multitude of other things that I would rather do, yet I know deep in my soul that I need it despite my surface feelings. I think this is true of most good things, they usually run contrary to our momentary feelings. Exercise, eating healthy, honoring truth, resolving conflict, loving others...all of these good things are hard because they often run contrary to our feelings. 

For me...this is why starting out with reading scripture is so critical to my heart and faith. Doing something I don't want to do out of obedience, starts my day in the right way and it prepares my mind for all the other hard things that naturally come my way each and every day. It doesn't mean that things get easier...actually sometimes things get harder and my contrary feelings seem to dig in harder and deeper. However it does prepare me and train me to do the hard things anyway. I have come to believe that this is God's way...doing so however always comes with reward...JOY, I never regret it and God's joy and love always make obedience worth the pain and frustration .

 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 

EPHESIANS 2:4-10