Jesus Christ is the very essence of His Word, He is called the Word because He embodies the essence of everything He says in the Bible.
To use the Bible as a book of suggestions is to disregard Christ Himself.
Far too many people who would say they are Christians have little to no regard for God's Word. They add to the Word with their own ideas or the ideas of the culture, without regard to the heart of God.
Those who say they believe the Bible but disregard His instructions about discipline, marriage, divorce and remarriage, and many other things are living in a fantasy world pretending to love His Word but not in reality.
Obedience is the key to our love for the Lord. To regard God's Word is to read and seek in Prayer the Holy Spirit to show you truth that you may follow it. We do not read the Bible to find loop holes allowing us to be comfortable in our sin. God will not speak to one who does this. He only speaks to those who want to know Him to obey Him.
John 14:15
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
Wow, notice that? God said "if you love me", "keep my commands." What are God's commands, they are everything He said in His Word and all the lessons we learn from His Word in the Old Testament as well as the new testament.
The entire Bible was not written to us but it was written for us. We must take all the lessons the patriarchs learned and taught and consider their wisdom to be followed in our day.
God's Word is timeless, it can be taken as pure truth and embraced with enthusiasm. When we love the Lord we want to pour over every word to find its meaning but not how we wish to believe it. We want to learn what God's meaning was, He knows best and will never lead us into wrong thinking.
IF someone is reading the Bible to make up their own meaning they will miss the truth and their fantasy will grow, diluting their walk.
Too many people read the Bible with the purpose of making it say what they like to hear. They lead many astray with their concocted teachings.
1 John 5:3
"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome."
God's commands are not burdensome to us because we love Him and whatever He says so much that we can never be satisfied, we want more and more of Him, which means we will want more and more of His Word, the way He means for us to have it.
There is an amazing joy that comes from knowing Him and His Word, but even more protection and joy in obeying whatever He says.
We are protected from false teaching, committing sins in our lives that have lifelong serious consequences, and even teaching us how to relate to brothers and sisters in Christ. Even how to relate to unsaved people.
All the instruction you need for life and obedience to Christ is in the Bible. When we are not sure what God says about something we can always pray for understanding from the Holy Spirit.
James 1:4-6 "…4 Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith, without doubting, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.…"
We do not need to be unsure or blown and tossed by everyone who wants us to think a certain way, we can ask the Holy Spirit, believe Him and stand firm in the face of opposition from others who do not understand what God has told you.
I probably cannot count the number of times the Lord told me something to do and others did not understand, even trying to deter me from following what He told me.
When God is not specific in His Word, perhaps we are not sure which car to buy or which town to move to, He can give us clear direction but we have to wait patiently for the answer. It has been amazing how God has ordered our lives over the years in unexpected ways. When He has done this there was no question of what He wanted us to do.
When we were looking for a house to buy on limited funds we had chosen a manufactured home. The people who were handling the sale were dragging their feet so long we were worried that we needed to get on the land we had purchased.
Because of their delay, we prayed that God would hurry them or give us another solution. The very next day my husband found one on a lot, brand new, a repo from a dealer that no one had lived in. The home was larger than the one we ordered and much less expensive. He was not looking, he had passed it on his way to work and there it was, everything we needed and for a cheaper price. We believe the people who were building the other newer home were delayed because God had something else in mind for us.
Every time we had an idea about something and prayed, God gave us better than we had expected. There have been so many things like this for us that I pray first now rather than wait until our plans don't work out.
When God orders our day our month our years we spare ourselves a lot of mistakes and blunders. Our human mind cannot be compared to the perfect knowledge of God. He knows the future, something we cannot possibly know. He guides us even when we don't know the reason for the direction He is taking us. We don't have to worry or plan ahead, we simply live each day trusting Him, making our plans and willing to be redirected when they do not work out.
Psalm 32:8
"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you."
Proverbs 3:5-6
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."
