Community News – 10-09-2024
Community –
Wake up, read your Bible, say a prayer, go about your day. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. We do this throughout the week until one special day set apart each week, when you wake up gather with the church and read the Bible as a group, say a prayer, and go about your week. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Why bother? What’s the end – the goal?
The purpose isn’t duty, but delight. I love how A.W. Tozer said it:
The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him and that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts (The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer).
I love that word: delight. God didn’t intend for duty to be the defining characteristic of how you relate to Him. Duty has its place, but delight is the purpose. Cultivating intimacy with God stirs a deep and lasting joy, satisfaction, and pleasure. We seek to know God because He is the home in which our souls will find their delight.
This passionate, joyous, and unembarrassed interchange of love and delight between you and God is the “throbbing heart” (Tozer again) of New Testament faith. In fact, God has created something of a flywheel in our hearts: the more we know God, the more we long for Him. Moses and David are examples of every-increasing spiritual hunger. After years of ministry, Saint Paul’s one prevailing desire was to know Jesus more (Phil. 3:8-11).
Community, let’s venture to be a people of prayer, a people who love scripture… but may that never become an end to itself. Would you join me in praying this dangerous prayer (adapted from one of Tozer’s prayers)?
O God, I have tasted your goodness,
and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.
I am painfully aware of my need for more grace. I
am ashamed of my lack of desire.
O God, I want to want You;
I long to be filled with longing;
I thirst to be made thirstier still.
Show me Your glory, I beg You, so that I may know You indeed.
Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.
Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
Then give me grace to rise and follow You up
from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
With Joy –
Pastor Brett
P.S. On the theme of pursuing God through scripture, here are a couple of resources:
(1) It’s not too late to join our “How to Read Your Bible” workshop TONIGHT from 6:30-8:00pm in room 100. RSVP HERE
(2) Sign-up for our Monday morning email with scripture readings for the week (plus reflection and application questions). SIGN UP HERE
(3) Looking for a simple way to discover who God is while you read the Bible? Grab a few friends, try the Discovery Bible Study method. Simple conversations to help us wrestle more deeply with how God is revealing Himself on the pages of scripture. Learn more HERE
