Shiloh is once again embarking on a course of reading the Bible together, and I have been thinking about the deep anointing that comes to rest upon people who pursue a relationship with God in His Word.
The power of God in His Word is real. It is expressed throughout the stories and teachings of the Bible. Joshua was told to meditate continually on the Word of God and to not let it depart from His mouth so that He would have success (Joshua 1:8). The writer of Hebrews tells us that the “ages are framed by the Word of God” (Heb 11:3). In Peter’s epistles we are told that we ourselves are born again, created new, through the living and enduring Word of God—the word that was proclaimed to us (1 Pet 1:23-25)!
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 which reads, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” That verse is immediately followed by a passage that teaches us about our relationship to the Word of God:
“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, NASB).
On the surface it could seem that Moses was encouraging the people of God to be diligent to read the Word often so that they would not forget it, and in the context of Deuteronomy this was certainly true. But there was something more that Moses was revealing in his instruction.
Moses knew that as the people immersed themselves in the Word, that God by His Spirit would begin to write that Word upon their hearts. He knew that God would use the Word to reform their lives—and even the world around them—to reflect the truth of His Word.
We must become more deeply aware that the words of God are not simply instruction for living—they are, as the apostle Paul expressed in the original Greek, God-breathed (2 Tim 3:14), and they contain within them the ability to change everything from the course of world events to the course of a single human life and even more personally, your life and my life.
We are embarking on a new course of Bible Study at Shiloh and I am praying that as we again immerse ourselves in the Word of God, He will continue to re-form our lives into the image of His Son; the Word of God made flesh (John 1:1).
Craig
Posted in Pastors Blog