The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men." ~ Isaiah 29:13 (NIV)
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Every morning, I turn on my computer and go about finding a verse of Scripture to use for VOTD, using five different web sources. And this morning I thought as I opened the first couple of sites, as I've often thought, It's the same verses over and over again. It just seems like these websites tend to latch onto the familiar, the verses that are most commonly quoted or referenced. Where's the diversity? Where's the rest of the Bible?
And then I thought about Scripture memorization and how, for those of us who've been in church since we were kids or worked with children in church, verses are drilled into the brain. And I wondered how often it is that this is just a drill, an exercise, which becomes nothing more than a party trick to amaze your friends when you can rattle off this and that verse like you're doing a 'dog and pony show'. I thought, Is that all God's word is to us?
And then I had a slightly overwhelming sense of the reality that the Bible is truly the Word of God. Yes, I know this is true in my head -- you probably do, too. But knowing deep down in your heart that the leather-bound book you carry to church contains the heart message from God to you is a bit of a different matter. Rattling off Bible verses to win a prize is very different than acknowledging the words as the very words of God. To you. For you. In you.
And then I read today's verse. Not new to me, as I've read through Isaiah before. But it clicked with my thought process! We read our Bible and fill up our head with Scripture because that's what believers in Jesus are supposed to do, right? We teach our kids to become masters of Bible verse memorization. But are we taking it into our being? Is it making the connection from ink on a page to a change in the heart? Do we really understand that what we're reading is of divine passion, power and purpose?
Don't fall into the trap of the 'dog and pony show'. Take God's word for what it really is and allow Him to infiltrate your heart through His message. Be changed by the living Word of God. That is authentic worship!
Love,
Joelene
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1 comment:
When I was in grade school, my church had a kids program kind of like AWANA, called CYC, Christian Youth Crudaders. It was 1/2 bible school, 1/2 scout troop type thing.
We began each meeting with a pledge, which included the phrase, "I will write God's word on my heart, that I might not sin against God."
Your point is well taken. We read and learn, but do we really take that Word into ourselves and make it a part of our heart and life? Does it effect our behaviour and our thoughts? Do we read and thereby yearn to please God?
Good food for thought. Thanks, Joelene.
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