Tuesday June 14, 2011

Read 2 Peter 1:16-18;  Matthew 17:1-9;  Psalm 2

Our Bibles are a first hand, eye witness account of what happened to Jesus. In any court or historical research department that is of great value. But, as we saw yesterday, the Bible is more than a historical document.  It is revealed to us that the disciples were eyewitnesses to His Majesty. They were with Jesus on the sacred mountain and they saw the heavens open up. They heard God declare that This ‘man’ who was with them was His Son.

As non-Jews, we can lose the majesty of that statement. This is the beloved Son of God. This Jesus is the anointed one, the Messiah. This Jesus is the one that God would give the nations to, the one before whom all nations would bow, the one who would rule for eternity with an iron sceptre.  The disciples were told by none other than God Himself that Jesus is the promised Messiah and they have written it down for us.

In fact, the entire Bible is written to point us to Jesus.  He Himself stated that these are the Scriptures (see John 5:39, in context the Old Testament) that testify about Him.

If we want to know Jesus and if we want to be intimate with Him then we have to be reading our Bible. We cannot know Jesus without our Bibles open.  Nature and the created order will of course show us something of our God (see Romans 1:20) but it will generally lead us to a knowledge that we are without excuse before God.  The Bible opens up for us the majesty of Christ, the grace He has given us, the assurance of forgiveness and the eternity we have with Him when we put our faith in Him.

If we are to win the victory over sin and bad habits then we must have our head and heart in the Bible regularly. We need to be reading it, not like we read other books, but with the anticipation that God will meet us and speak to us personally. We need to read the Bible with the awe and reverence that a conversation with God deserves.

Take time right now to think about how you can re-jiggle your day to allow yourself time to sit with God and to listen to Him speak to you from His word. What can you change so that time with God becomes a non-negotiable item in your daily diary?

Prayer:-

V Praise God for leaders on 3 campuses.

V Pray for those who are coming to the Mid-Year Conference in June in Qld.

V Pray for the provision of $90,000 over the next 3 years to fund our efforts in launching Student Life in Perth.