The Word

I was filing away some of my notes from the past month of teaching and came across a comment that really struck me....

"Any change we make because we have had a revelation of who Jesus is will produce His nature within us; any changes made without a revelation of Jesus will almost always result in a religious nature."

It is a message that has been coming through over and over again - this is about a person not an idea! God is a person, not an idea. The bible is not a bunch of rules, it is the biography of God's nature.

When we invite people into a "personal relationship" with Jesus, I think that sometimes we limit that phrase to mean that we can know God personally as our "individual" God. But it's more than Him being an individual God (and that our own personal experience/ideas governs who He is and what He is like), He is a person, and therefore He wants to relate to all of us like a person, through regular dialogue and interaction. Dialogue in the form of the Word, prayer, adoring worship and the praise of our lips (to name just a few).

So it has raised some righteous jealousy in me. If Jesus is the revelation of the Invisible God, and His words/teachings are our spiritual food and apart from Him we can do NOTHING and having a revelation of His nature is the starting point to everything good - WHY do we spend so much time preaching and teaching our own "creative" ideas and imaginations, and so little time eating the Word of Truth?!

We labor SO hard in our fields, working the soil, building barns, training laborers and looking to the sky for rain and yet in all of our toiling we have forgotten that the MOST IMPORTANT THING needed is SEED!

What is seed? Jesus defines "seed" as being the Word of God!

God's word is powerful! It was His word that created everything out of nothing. It is His word that is sharper than any two-edged sword, suitable for separating soul and spirit. Hebrews says that all things are held together by the word of His power. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God and the Word was with God. Jesus is that Word and He is the visible image of the invisible God!

Seeing the worthiness of Jesus is the beginning of worship
Seeing the holiness of Jesus is the beginning of confession
Seeing the resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of hope
Seeing the generosity of God is the beginning of sacrifice
Seeing the mercy of God is the beginning of giving mercy
Seeing the reconciliation of Christ is the beginning of peace

Apart of a revelation of Him we can not enter into anything of the Spirit, for everything of the spirit is produced by tasting and eating of the goodness of God made manifest in Christ.

We possess the most powerful weapon in all of the created universe, it is called the Word of God, the Bible, and it is the only thing that can conquer our fear, our sin, our weakness, our enemies, our addictions, our punishment and our feelings of just not measuring up.

Ask anyone who has heard God speak to them tenderly through the pages of scripture, it is the most incredible encounter you can possibly imagine. Simple letters and phrases suddenly empowered by the Spirit of the Living God!!

Rhonda and I have had the pleasure of spending the past 9 weeks doing nothing but reading, praying and meditating on the Words of God, and with every passing day our hearts grow more and more in love with the Uncreated God! Never before have I been able to proclaim with an ever increasing joy "come and kiss me with the kisses of your word."(song of songs 1).

I want to invite you to taste of the Lord's goodness today by picking up a bible and setting your heart on discovering the personality of God visible in His written word. Remembering that the Jesus you are reading about is a real man, sitting on a real throne and He is really coming back to the earth as a real Bridegroom, King and Judge - and HE LOVES YOU!

My prayer today is 1 Thesselonians 3:1 "May the word of the Lord run swiftly and be glorified"

Bless You

Jon