Monday, September 3, 2012

The Wealth of God's Word ~ Part 1

Now that you have read my four- part biography, we will be able to identify with each other in our future studies.

It is my desire that THE WEALTH OF GOD’S WORD will give a deeper hunger to dig into God’s gold mine of truth and grow thereby.

LET’S START OUR STUDY

We have a gold mine at our finger tips. Its resources are available to anyone at anytime and yields high dividends to those who are willing to dig. That gold mine, of course, is the Bible, which tells us everything we need to know about life.

One Bible teacher said, “How wonderful it is to study the Scripture and to know that I not only have the page in my hand, but I have the Author in my heart.” Of course we know the Author is the Holy Spirit Who inspired the words of Scripture. And the Holy Spirit is our teacher. Isn’t that awesome! We have the Author at our side!

People ask my husband and me to autograph our books. They take them home and study on their own. They may have questions to be answered, but we are not there. Not so with God’s Word. The Author is always and immediately available. Our Interpreter comes with the Book. Isn’t that awesome! All we need to do is ask Him to help us.

To ask means to pray. Prayer is crucial with any form of interaction with the triune God and His Word. (In fact, we know that prayer is crucial in any and every activity of life). John 16:13 tells us that the Holy Spirit will guide us in all truth. We need that. We can’t understand, apply, or obey on our own. We need help. So when we open our Bible, the first thing we must do is to ask the Holy Spirit to be our Teacher; to reveal the infinitely precious truths of God to us. Isn’t that Awesome! We have the Author, the Interpreter, and the Teacher right at our side!

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God” ( Psalm 42:1). I picture a beleaguered deer with a body drained of moisture and panting for water to assuage its thirst. That is the way I want to approach the Word of God. A thirst that can never be quenched apart from God and His all consuming Word.

Gabriel Bradford transferred the picture to himself when he said, “My one unchanged ambition wheresoe’er my feet have trod is a keen, enormous, haunting never-sated thirst for God.” Through His Word.

(to be continued)

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