Evening brothers. Thanks be to God for the gracious insights He gives into His word.
You know, when I was a very young child, I remember trying to read the Bible and it was a sealed book to me. It was a complete mystery. Later as a young adult I picked it up again, this time because I had gotten involved in a sort of new age group and the teacher would try to apply things from the Bible to his teachings. Although I grasped a couple things in the New Testament, superficially, for the most part it remained a sealed book.
Years passed and then, when I was not at all seeking Him, God began to call me and open my eyes. I had picked up the Bible again and this time it was wide open! I was understanding things and seeing things I had never understood before; for the first time I got it, I got the message of the Bible!
Brother Paul, thank you for the encouragement! The Bible is such an amazing book. I want to use the word awesome but feel like my heart doesn't do the word, applied to the Word of God, the justice that it should. I have been spending alot of time in the 119th Psalm after finding a recording of it being sung here on the Index. Wow. I say wow.
Brother BenWilliams and myfirstlove,
I'd like to share something of an application to this that was in my mind, in back of posting this, by way of a story from my experience.
When I first started to go out and try to tell others about the Gospel, I'd go out with a Bible in hand, lots of zeal, and quite a bit of nervousness and a little fear too... alright quite a bit of fear! Anyway, I didn't use tracts, or any sort of methods. I would just start talking to people and would often pray and ask God to give me a word from the Bible to speak.
One day it turned out I was the one that needed a word. Shortly before that I had approached a man and shared something from the scripture which the pastor had mentioned in service and I think he suggested that it might be for someone to hear outside of Church. So I thought this was the man. He recieved it graciously and thanked me. Well sometime later I saw him again and as I passed him, somehow or another I went over to him and he recalled our earlier meeting. This time he said he felt he should share something with me. In short, what he said was simply a chapter and verse. Know what it was? It was James 2:10
[i] For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.[/i]
When I found out what it was it really hit home. It was truely a word spoken in season for me because at that time I was becoming very self-righteous. And here-in I think is an application of this text. There is something very powerfull about sharing God's word with people and especially when it brings conviction. I say powerfull and very dangerous to our own souls as well.
When we wield the word of God under annointing we are handling more power than we must surely realise. I see it as a great snare that may be laid before us, in that, if we are not carefull, we may become puffed up, self-righteous, and even blind. How easy is it, when you are so often confronting others about their sins and need to be reconciled to God, having become so accustomed to doing it, to loose sight of your own? Here I see a way in which this text may be speaking to us.
[i]Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?[/i]
Do we not always need to be reminded of our own unworthyness in the sight of God and condemnation under the Law while we are administering liberal amounts of its threatenings to others? Well, in my own case I think this was very much the need.
Having come to a certain place of outward obedience I was forgetting the pit from which I was dug:
[i]Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.[/i]
I think the scripture here may be warning us of this very thing, that we who hold up the commandments before men, not forget that they do always stand ready to condemn us as well, were it not for that perfect righteousness of Christ which alone has met its demands.
Psalm 119 verse 96 reads
[i]I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.[/i]
Broad enough to find fault with our perfections still.
Chris
