September 3 - Repost #3

I know that many of the things I will learn over the next few years will cause me to question the truth of our Scriptures.  Maybe not intentionally, but learning how to discern the errors in copying, translating from original languages and seeing how that interpretation happens in the Bibles that we read ... on and on and on will be difficult at some level.  I'm thankful that I've spent (ahem ... cough, cough) nearly 50 years as a student of Scripture itself and have faith in the God who made His words available to us.

September 3, 2009 - Divinely Inspired

Sometimes I get quite emotional when I realize the gift that I have been given ... that we all have been given ... within the pages of our Bible. That the Lord God Almighty would desire a relationship with us is almost more than I can comprehend. There is no King or Ruler on earth that could be bothered with me, but the Creator of everything we see and that which we can't see wants me to understand Him and wants to be close to me.

The gift of His words is a large part of what makes that relationship happen. He gave us prophecies, teaching, stories of failures and success, descriptions of His power, songs of praise and worship to help us understand the depth of His great love for us.

Jeremiah 36:2, "Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations from the I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now."

Ezekiel 1:3, "...the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River int he land of the Babylonians. There the hand of the Lord was upon him.

Zechariah 7:12, "They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets."

Over and over again we are told that the Lord spoke through His prophets so that the people of Israel would understand exactly Who it was they were to take leadership from.

In Acts 1:16, Peter says "Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus."

King David, spent hours before the Lord and as God spoke to him, wrote prophecies in the Psalms as well as hymns of praise.

Paul tells Timothy that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16)

Peter says, in 2 Peter 1:21, "For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." We see the reality of that in Revelation 1:1 when John identifies that the revelation of Jesus Christ came when Jesus sent his angel to John to deliver it.

In Revelation 14:13, John says "Then I heard a voice from heaven say, 'Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' 'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.'"

These men knew that they were hearing from the Lord and knew that they were the conduit for His words to God's people. They were assured by the Lord over and over of the importance of what they were doing.

God has given us His words so that we can know Him intimately. What a gift we have received.