The Huge Difference

“Jesus is the point of the Bible. To live by faith means looking to Jesus for all our hope, joy and peace. …The Scriptures are where we meet the risen Christ. We read the Bible, not as a spiritual offering but as a desperate receiving. We open the Bible not to impress God, but that He might impress us again with His gospel. …In the history of the church there has been no better description of the Bible than as ‘the Spirit’s testimony to the Son.” It is not a road map or an instruction manual for life. It is a biography of Jesus: commissioned by the Father, authored by the Spirit and addressed to the church.” Glen Scrivener, The King’s English Year Long Devotional

These words from Mr. Scrivener’s preface of his devotional echoed in my heart and fed the fire that has been burning there for a few days, so I thought this morning that I would just share from that fire.

We are such a self-centered species. We want everything where we can understand and we want all to make us “feel” good. When these two items are in tact within us, then our day works out pretty well for us. But when we do not “see” nor understand and when we do not “feel” good about matters, then we “nose-dive into our navels” and struggle to exist. This is just the way it is in our society. 

For the believer, the one sold out to Jesus Christ, the journey can be, and really must be, very different. We have been given faith, (“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think [of himself] more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Romans 12:3 KJV) When we became a believer, we were given faith – the same measure that all receive. We have the innate spiritual ability to “see” what cannot be seen and to believe what is impossible to believe. Therefore, we have an ability other people do not have that will enable us to live with a mind receiving much beyond a non-believer. 

Yet, we have not quite understood that the key to doing this, beginning to think with the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), and to set our minds (affections – KJV) on things above is directly related to our attitude concerning the Scriptures. If we know our hope is in Him and our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3), then we begin to regard the Scriptures as much more than a daily devotional. 

We begin to see that our Jesus is every breath of God and as we willing receive these words (even when we do not understand them) as that breath so essential to our being, then we begin to consume the word. It is no longer a chore that “I need to do,” nor is it something to put off to a more convenient time. It is my life my breath. It gives me more of Him and I begin to “see” His thoughts and know His mind. This all takes a bit of time – there is no magic here. It is the training of the spirit-man in Spirit ways. We gradually, day by day, renew our minds – which in turn transforms our lives. (Romans 12:2)

It is awesome – this joy that simply waits until we willing begin to discover Him on every page and in every verse and every word. Jesus revealed and the revealer of the Scriptures – the Huge Difference!