Understanding the Letter // The Spirit and The Word, Part 4

Once people get over the fact that the Bible isn’t a bunch of do’s and don’ts, the biggest thing that stops them from reading it is that it doesn’t makes sense.

One of the things that I'm really passionate about is, I guess, just being here with you today and knowing that through our time we've spent together (somehow), God's used that time to draw you closer to Him.

Life's too short to live it without a passionate and a dynamic and a real and a beautiful relationship with Jesus. Some people may scoff at that. But deep down – right deep down in our spirit – we all hunger for God to touch us, for God to fill us, to give us His peace and His joy and His abundant life. And what's so sad for me is to see people living their lives as though all of God's blessing, as though God Himself is somehow a million miles away. When all along, He's closer, closer than even their deepest secrets of their hearts.

This week on the program, we're looking at intimacy with God through His spirit and through His word. People make a mistake and say, "God is all about a bunch of rules and it's all about a bunch of doctrine and logic and so I've got to get all this head knowledge to know God." And hey, knowing God's word is fabulous. I make a living out of doing that. I try and let God use me to bless you by doing that. But there's more … there's God’s Holy Spirit.

If I just pick up His Bible and read it as a bunch of words and a bunch of rules and don't let God’s Spirit work in me and lift the words off the page and put them into my heart, what I end up with is some sort of legalistic – religiously thing.

Here, you and I are in the world that God created. Jesus in the flesh has been here and gone, He's promised to come back.

But in the mean time God has actually left two things of Himself behind. Now sure, the world and the universe and all that’s in it are God's but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the two things of God Himself that He's left here for us, here and now. What are they?

The first is His Spirit, the promise of Jesus to His disciples and to you and to me (here and now) is to pour His Spirit out on us, to come and dwell in us. Through His Spirit God has left behind God Himself, the Spirit of God.

And the second thing that God has left behind of Himself is His word, the Bible. Now many people cringe at that. But His word is His love letter to us, His story, His promises, His wisdom, His grace.

And it's so sad to see people want more of God, to hunger for Him, to thirst for Him and they have a Bible on a shelf or in a cupboard somewhere and it's gathering dust. I often meet people like that and they see my enthusiasm for God, or they hear it in my voice and they say, "I wish I had that." No! I'm nothing special. In my own way, I'm just like you. Where do you get that real relationship with God that just bubbles over? And so I say to them, "When was the last time you read your Bible?" Hush … silence.

The Bible (in my neck of the woods) is looked at with mistrust and negative connotations, fundamentalism, conservatism. There are more 'isms' poked at the Bible that we could poke a stick at. And so I say to people, "If God wrote you a love letter, wouldn't you want to read it?" Well, He did and it's called the Bible. "Yeah well, I don't understand the Bible. The Bible's hard to read. It's all over the place, who's Ephraim, what was Babylon all about? And who was Paul? And why did Jesus tell a story about a Samaritan? None of it makes sense to me so I just gave up. It was too hard."

I understand that … so I'm going to share just four practical tips with you that anyone can implement and do in their lives to read God’s love letter.

And the first one is – to pray in the Spirit. The Bible says of itself that the Holy Spirit inspired every word that it contains. If the Holy Spirit inspired and wrote the thing through men and women, then the Holy Spirit can open it up and speak it into your heart and into my heart. And I tell you the truth, I never open that book without first asking Him, the Holy Spirit, to open it up for me.

Dear Holy Spirit, I'm about to read your word, and I need you to open it up. And I need you to lift the words off the page. And I need you to feed them into my spirit because if they're just words, they're useless. But these are God’s words and God I need you to feed me with your word.

That’s the first thing, to pray in the spirit to ask God himself to open the book for you.

The second one is nowhere near as spiritual – get a Bible dictionary. What's that? You can get a Bible dictionary that’s thin and small paperback. You can get one that's 27 volumes. I've got one that's 27 volumes but I've also got one that's one volume and it's called, "The Holman Bible Dictionary". And I just had a look online and it's under $50.00 or less than a pair of shoes. And it has pictures and diagrams and maps so when you come to read about Ephraim you can read two paragraphs and you know who or what Ephraim is. And when you come to read about Samaria or the Temple or David or Ruth, you can go a look those people up or those places up and just in a short time, all of a sudden we know what it's talking about.

A Bible dictionary is a wonderful tool. As I said I use the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary. It's under fifty bucks and there are stacks of them online. You can go to www.biblegateway.com. It has a whole bunch of Bible dictionaries online to help explain things and issues and concepts that we may not understand because the Bible was written in different times and different cultures. Pray in the spirit, get a Bible dictionary.

The third one, – get a Bible translation that makes sense to you. People sometimes ask me, "What's the best translation? Which one should I have?" The one that you'll read is my answer. I have several. I love the New International Version. I love the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version). I love the Contemporary English Version. I love The Message By Eugene Petersen, I love that, it's really contemporary.

So I have a few, I rely on the NRSV as my favourite translation but hey, that's me. It may not work for you. You may prefer an NIV. And one of the things that we can do is get a study Bible. A study Bible has an explanation about each book and what the context was that it was written in … about the author, it explains situations and has word references and maps and cross-references. They're really helpful. Get a Bible translation that makes sense to you.

And the fourth one is – get serious, do this every day. Just twenty minutes, some prayer time, reading God’s word, listening to Him, praying again. Read it through book by book.

We have on our website www.christianityworks.com some 'read me' plans. You can read from beginning to end. You can read in chronological sequence, you can read the Old Testament, the New Testament in parallel. Go to our website www.christianityworks.com and have a look at the Bible 'read me' plans.

Come on – get serious! This is God wanting to talk to you.

Let me ask you a question, are you hungry for God? Are you thirsty for God? Do you want to be filled with His Spirit? Well, get serious! Open His love letter and enjoy.