John MacArthur defines the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura as having “to do
with the sufficiency of Scripture as our supreme authority in all spiritual matters.
Sola Scriptura simply means that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual
life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture.”
If we are to embrace sola Scriptura, then it would seem to me that it would be pretty
important to spend time reading Scripture, learning from Scripture, and growing as
a result. I sense in all honesty I should be spending more time reading and studying
my Bible. If we carry that a little further, we should all be able to see just how
important a dedicated study of the Bible, the very word of God should be.
I am reading a great book called “Taking God at His Word” by Kevin DeYoung. It is a
book that provides a little detail concerning the authority and the sufficiency of
Scripture. In it DeYoung states:
"The scriptures are our spectacles (to use Calvin's phrase), the lenses through which
we see God, the world, and ourselves rightly. We cannot truly know God, his will, or the
way of salvation apart from the Bible..."Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the word
of eternal life" (John 6:68). There is no other book like the Bible. It reveals a different
kind of wisdom, comes from a different source, and tells of a different love."
I love that image of using the Bible as our lens to view God and all he has created as
the path to truly know God. Acts 17:11 tells us:
“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica,
for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures
every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
Father, help us be of noble character and help us examine the Scriptures; your
precious Word every day.
Grace and Peace!
Galatians 6:2
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
I have been thinking about this verse quite a bit. In Galatians 5 Paul reminds us that
we are to serve one another in love and that then entire law can be summed up as
love your neighbor as yourself.
This word burden in Greek means heaviness, weight, trouble; it means to impose
upon one difficult requirements. So if we are serving one another in love there will
be times where we enter into difficulties with those we love, there will be times
when we absolutely must help bear the weight of some trouble.
As I think about this more and more I see that Christ was the ultimate example of
this. Because he loved us, he carried our “burden” to the cross. I am amazed
and a little emotional when I think of the weight, the heaviness of the cross that
Christ literally carried for me; because of me. The weight of my brokenness, my
selfishness, my pride, my...well you get the picture. And all because Christ loves us
so much!
When I am thinking clearly I can see that because of the weight of the cross that
Christ carried to rescue me, to restore me, how can I not carry another’s burdens out
of love?
Tim Keller says; “You cannot help with a burden unless you come very close to the
burdened person, standing virtually in their shoes, and putting your own strength
under the burden so its weight is distributed on both of you, lightening the load of
the other. So in the same way, a Christian must listen and understand, and
physically, emotionally, spiritually, take up some of the burden with the other
person.”
What a beautiful picture of having a relationship based on Christian love for our
neighbors. To love them enough to get close to them; to share in the weight of
whatever the load; Jesus, thank you for loving us so much that you would carry the
ultimate burden for each of us.
Abba Father, help us to get close to our neighbors, to
listen, to understand, to physically, emotionally, and spiritually take up some of the
burden. To love as Christ loved us.
Grace and Peace!
Now I am sure you have all heard the phrase “can I have your undivided attention.”
That thought; undivided attention has had, well, my attention lately. I have been
thinking about how busy I am (or appear to be) and how my attention, my focus is
so divided. I try to do what seems to be 1000 things so my attention span is about
10 minutes.
Kevin DeYoung in his book 'Crazy Busy' describes it like this; “on most days, my
responsibilities, requirements and ambitions add up to much more that I can
handle. It has been since I was a teenager, and only seems to be getting worse.” Can
any of you relate to that?
Well as I continue to dwell on my divided attention, I must confess that this even
affects my Christian walk. I know God deserves my undivided attention, but at times
I find it so hard. I am so ashamed that even during times of prayer some other
thought will enter this absolutely privileged conversation and off on another task I
go. Shouldn’t our focus be on Christ and all he has done for us?
This divided attention could get a person down, but there is hope. Romans 8 tells us
that; “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that
is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And while that passage is so hopeful and encouraging that nothing; not even my
divided attention can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ, it does also
provide to me a remedy. Because of that great love, I am drawn more and more to
Christ, and isn’t that the answer...more of Jesus!
DeYoung wraps it up so well... “What is wrong...is to live a life with more craziness
than we want because we have less Jesus than we need.”
Father, forgive me my divided attention and inch by inch and step by step help me to
focus on the Cross, and all that was done out of your great love for me. Help me to
love you more and more each day. Help us all to find more Jesus and less clutter;
help us give you our undivided attention.
Grace and Peace!
Something you hear a whole bunch about in Christian circles is this thing called community.
I wonder if we truly understand just what this means for us a
“community of believers.” I know at our Church we are really trying to make sure we have an
environment of community, yet what does that look like?
To begin we probably should understand the biblical meaning of this word community.
Jerry Bridges wrote an entire book on this subject and points to 1 John 1:3 (NEB) – “What
we have seen and heard we declare to you, so that you and we together may share in a
common life, that life which we share with the father and his son Jesus Christ.”
So in this verse we can see that community is sharing a common life. Bridges points out that
this phrase in Greek is the word Koinonia and can mean many things like fellowship,
sharing, partnership, but is much deeper than our typical view of these things. I think we
tend to view community as an activity; go to community group, bring a covered dish to a
fellowship lunch...you get the picture.
Again true biblical community goes much deeper. Bible commentator William Hendriksen
said “Koinonia, then is basically a community relationship.” So community is a relationship
not just an activity. As believers we are called to something much deeper than Church
activities so that no matter what we are going through, we have people there to surround
us, to help, to comfort, to show compassion, to love us.
Gregg Matte calls it the very important ministry of presence. It is being there in this thing
we call life. What would that look like? Matte uses an illustration about a little girl that
once lost her playmate who lived down the street. She told her mom that she was going to
her friend’s house to comfort the grieving mother. After an hour the little girl returned. Her
mom asked, “What did you say to make her feel better?” The little girl replied, “Nothing, I
just crawled into her lap and cried with her.” This is just a beautiful picture of community
being there especially during what Matte calls “the gut punches of life.”
Galatians 5:6b tells us: "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." So if
we are in a loving relationship with Jesus then it can’t help but be expressed through being
in a loving community relationship and what better place than as a Church. You know as we
come alongside others as part of community they don’t remember what you said or
necessarily even what you did. They remember you were there.
Francis Schaeffer reminded us “We must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus
gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.”
Father, help us to share in a common life with you at the center. Amen!
Grace and Peace!
