Jesus said that knowing and applying the Word of God creates the foundation for our lives:
"Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." Matthew 7:24 [NIV]
In order for us to become Christ-like we must become living translations of God's Word. The Bible is unlike any other book – it is alive. When God speaks our lives are transformed – but that can only happen by making the Bible the authoritative standard for our lives, the compass we rely on for direction, the wisdom we listen to for making decisions and the measure for evaluating everything.
The Bible must always have the first and the last word in our lives.
As we begin to prepare for our adventure in 40 Days in the Word next year, my prayer is that this will become a life-transforming experience as we love the Word of God more, as we learn more of God's Word and as we Live out God's Word.
In today's reading form Malachi, chapter 3 verse 8 we are warned against robbing God, Malachi goes on to explain how his hearers were robbing God by not paying the full amount of the tithe into the Temple. They were claiming one thing and doing another.
The reality is that we will often say that we believe things which in fact we don't! We cannot just say that we believe the Bible, like some kind of book of theories – we demonstrate that we believe it when we do it – so with tithing we might say we believe in tithing, but unless we actually tithe we don't really believe in it and we are robbing God if we don't!
To be a healthy disciple of Jesus, feeding on God's Word must be our first priority, Jesus called it "abiding". He said "If you abide in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine" John 8:31 [NIV]
May you abide in God's Word today and every day and be transformed to become the disciples Jesus made you to be.
Please pray for every member of m2o and others who may be drawn in, as together we embark on the adventure of 40 Days in the Word next year.
Martin Saxby
Read the Bible in a Year: Psalm 144:1-8; Malachi 2:17-4:6; Revelation 7:1-17
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