Would you rather be perfect or forgiven?

I've asked this question to myself and to my kids: Would you rather be perfect or forgiven? My natural instinct is to prefer to be perfect. I feel better about myself when I am perfect - when I don't make any mistakes (at least not any that people know about). But I am not perfect. And my failures frustrate me. But I realized a while back that my failures bring me an opportunity to experience something better than being perfect - being forgiven. You see, if I was perfect, people would probably always treat me okay - just because they'd have no reason not to. But when people treat me well when they have a reason not to - when they forgive me - then I know I am loved. And, when I stop and think about it, I would rather be loved and know it than be perfect and wonder if anyone really loves me. Would I rather be perfect or forgiven? I thank God that, in His wisdom, He did not make me perfect. Because as an imperfect person I have the opportunity to know that I am loved - by other people, and most of all by God.

Although he might not say it the way I say it here, perhaps umpire Jim Joyce would also say that he'd rather be forgiven than perfect, after the response to his mistake Wednesday night, and to his admirable confession of his mistake. (Note especially Joyce's comment that "I've probably been at an all-time low, and steadily climbing to, I guess, an all-time high, I guess.")

Romans 11:32 "For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all."

To you it has been granted...

Philippians 1:29 - "For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake."

Is the idea that God would grant us "to suffer for His sake" foreign to us? Do we not think that suffering is a sign that something is wrong and needs to be fixed? It is as clear as can be here: Suffering for Jesus' sake is a gift from God. We must think about the Christian life in ways that include this idea. And we must be prepared for future suffering, so that when it comes, we can see it as a gift from God, and we can rejoice the way Paul did. How can we prepare for suffering? One way is to read the Bible and to take it seriously - especially the promises that God has made about the future and the benefits that will come to those who suffer for Jesus' sake. Perhaps then we will be able to believe that it really is a blessing to be able "to suffer for His sake."

Our proud confidence

2 Corinthians 1:12 - "For our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you."

Often, my confidence - or lack of it - comes from my perception of what other people think of me or of what I have done. But Paul's example shows us that our confidence ought to come from our own conscience. Can we say that we have conducted ourselves in holiness and godly sincerity? Even though those things (holiness and godly sincerity) do not guarantee that we won't make mistakes or that people won't misunderstand us, they should give us confidence.

What if we hope in Christ in this life only?

A comment from today's Bible reading blog:

1 Corinthians 15:19 - Have you ever heard someone say that even if our belief in Jesus isn't true, it still makes our life better and is worth believing? But what does Paul say? "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied?" Why? Because hope in Christ involves self-denial and suffering. What would be the point of those things if Christ has not been raised? How would we be "better off" in that case? Doesn't this prove that the main way that we benefit from believing in Christ is in eternity, rather than in this life?

A Powerful Quote

"The question, brothers, is not whether we will die, but whether we will die in a way that bears much fruit."

This is from John Piper's biographical message about Adoniram Judson, who died 160 years ago this past Monday. The blog post caught my eye because Judson, the first American foreign missionary, gave his life to take the Gospel to Myanmar (Burma), a place that, Lord willing, I will be teaching in the not too distant future. Many of the ABTS students in Myanmar come from the result of Judson's work.

Great Deals on Great Marriage Books

The Westminster Bookstore is offering some great deals on some excellent books on marriage. They are offering Paul Tripp's "What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage" for $8.99 instead of $21.99 and John Piper's "This Momentary Marriage" for $5.00 instead of $17.99. You can access these deals here. The deals are only good until Friday, April 16th at 3pm.

Why?

From today's entries on Cross Point's Bible Reading Blog.

Matthew 27:46 - This also tells us that something more was going on than the physical suffering that eyewitnesses could have seen. Jesus was suffering the wrath of His Father, which included being forsaken by the One with whom He had enjoyed perfect fellowship from eternity past. Imagine a child calling for help from his father, only to have his father turn and walk the other way. His cry, "Why have your forsaken me?" would not be a noble, symbolic statement, but a cry of desperation and rejection. This, I am convinced, is how we should hear Jesus' cry here.

Who was St. Patrick?

Who was St. Patrick that he should have his own holiday? This article by Mark Driscoll gives us an answer. St. Patrick was "one of the greatest missionaries who ever lived."

"Patrick gave his life to the people who had enslaved him until he died at 77 years of age. He had seen untold thousands of people convert as between 30-40 of the 150 tribes had become substantially Christian. He had trained 1000 pastors, planted 700 churches, and was the first noted person in history to take a strong public stand against slavery."

You can read the whole thing here.

"O Sovereign Lord"

Last night, I read with my kids David's prayer in the second half of 2 Samuel chapter 7. Over and over, David calls God "Sovereign Lord." To be sovereign is to have absolute authority. No one has authority over someone who is sovereign. If God is the Sovereign Lord, then no one in the universe can make Him do what He doesn't want to do, or keep Him from doing what He wants to do. When we think about what God is like, is His sovereignty one of the first things we think of? Perhaps it should be.

Psalm 51:1

From my Bible reading this morning...

Psalm 51:1 - On what basis do we ask God for forgiveness? Not on the basis of our other good works, but on the basis of the greatness of His compassion. This is surely good news. We don't have to ask, "Have I done enough to be forgiven?" We only need to ask, "Is God compassionate enough to forgive?" And the answer is always, "Yes!"

Free Audio Books

Each month, ChristianAudio.com offers free audio books. This month, there are two free options (you can get both) - Dietrich Bonhoeffer's classic, The Cost of Discipleship, on John Piper's more recent excellent little book, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. You can go straight to the free download page by clicking here.

An Unhindered Prisoner

Here is one of my comments from this morning on our church's Bible reading blog.

Acts 28:30-31 - Could Acts possibly end on a better note? Paul was being held as a prisoner. So what? He was able to welcome (receive) all who came to him. He was preaching "the kingdom of God" (there it is again) and was "teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ". He was doing this "with all openness." He didn't have to hide what he was doing. And then there is the beautiful final word of the book - unhindered. Paul was a prisoner. But nothing was hindering his proclamation of the Gospel of the kingdom.

Our Big News

On February 7th, I announced to our church that our family has become convinced that God wants us to pursue an opportunity for me to teach at Asia Baptist Theological Seminary, which is based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This seminary provides a US accredited Master's level education to national pastors, missionaries, Bible translators, and other in locations throughout Asia. We would be living in Chiang Mai, where the seminary's office is, and I would travel multiple times a year to teach two-week seminar classes in countries like the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, etc.

This decision was difficult, since we are part of a great church and it is an exciting time in the life of our church. Our decision really is a matter of obedience to what God seems to be making clear to us - that it is time to pursue something that has been in our hearts for a long time, something which seemed impossible in the past, but which now seems possible. It feels to us like if we tried to justify any other course of action, we would be demonstrating a lack of faith in what we've been learning - and what I've been preaching - and that we would be disobedient to God.

For now, I will remain on as pastor until the elders release me to begin our financial support raising. We expect this release to occur when we have brought in our next pastor. Between searching for a new pastor and raising financial support, we expect to be about two years away from moving to Thailand (Lord willing!).

Below is (a somewhat lengthy) portion of the message I gave when I announced and explained this decision...

First of all, the consideration of full-time missions is not a new thing for us. When I came to faith in Jesus in college, it was through Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the largest mission agencies in the world. I became friends with people who had been on mission trips and went on some myself. I had a growing excitement about being involved in God’s work in different parts of the world and thought that He wanted me to go be involved in that work.

In fact, as I was getting to know Beth, I was pretty sure that God wanted me to be a missionary. I knew that if I was going to marry someone, they would need to be willing to be a missionary too. Before I would ever ask Beth on a date, I needed to be sure that she could go along with whatever missionary calling God might have for me. And I clearly remember asking her in the cafeteria on campus one day if she had ever thought of being a missionary. And I learned, to my pleasure, that she was very much open to being a missionary. I thought I was being kind of sly, not letting on that I wanted to ask her out if the answer was yes. But I found out later that she knew exactly what I was doing. Apparently, slyness is not my gift.

Early in our marriage, we were planning on being full-time missionaries in a Muslim country. But God sent us in another direction at the time (to Canada), although we never completely dismissed the possibility of missions. In seminary, we were again considering full-time missions, especially opportunities to be training pastors in other parts of the world – something that we both felt was extremely important and that might be something I would be effective at. It was something we would have really liked to do. But it just didn’t seem possible, so we once again pursued something else. And that something else led us here, something for we which we are extremely grateful.

As I reflect on why it didn’t seem possible for us to pursue full-time missions at that time, I can think of three reasons why it didn’t seem possible. (I want to mention these so you can see how God removed those obstacles.)

- We had very young children, which, as you know, makes day-to-day life very challenging. And this made it seem impossible for us – and especially for Beth – to manage to do much more than survive if we lived in another part of the world.

- My dad was alone. I have a really close relationship with my dad. And almost 11 years ago, my parents’ marriage ended. So my dad lived alone. And the thought of moving so far away from him seemed impossible.

- We had no real opportunity to pursue the kind of ministry we were interested in. We liked the idea of training pastors overseas, but didn’t know where we would or could do that. We didn’t know anybody who could open that door for us. And, on top of that, I had no experience as a pastor that would give me any credibility in training pastors.

So it didn’t seem possible for us to go into full-time missions. And we were beginning to think that it would never happen. And that was okay – because God gave us an opportunity to serve with you – first at Walnut Creek, and now at Cross Point (Walnut Creek and Vienna Baptist Church merged to form Cross Point last year). And I had every intention of staying here for decades. Some of you heard me say things like that and I meant it. I didn’t want to move on to another church. And while teaching pastors overseas still sounded like the coolest job in the world, it didn’t seem like something that was possible. And we didn’t expect that to change.

But then God began to do some things that did change things for us, taking what seemed impossible and making it seem not only possible, but really, quite honestly, like something we must do – at the risk of being disobedient.

So what did God do to open doors that had seemed closed to us in the past?

1. I have to be honest that getting to know the Miskimen family had a big impact on us.

a. Not only were they good friends to us, but

b. Their preparation to teach at ABTS made us aware of a real place where people were doing the kind of thing that I already thought was the coolest job in the world.

c. We watched them actually do some very difficult things – like completing the process of raising financial support, and saying goodbye to familiar things and to their families. And when you see other people do hard things to follow and serve Jesus, it gets a little bit easier to imagine yourself doing those same hard things.

d. And we’ve kept in touch with them and learned that people like us – even Charlene who doesn’t even like Americanized Chinese food – can make it in Thailand – house geckoes and all.

e. But this still didn’t seem to be a real possibility until a few other things began to happen last year.

i. My dad remarried. God brought a wonderful lady named Nancy into my dad’s life and they got married last March. All of a sudden, the dad that I didn’t want to leave alone by going overseas, would not be alone.

ii. I began to learn about the plans of ABTS to expand their degree offerings, meaning that more professors were needed.

iii. I had a “real” opportunity to teach in a more academic situation than normal (in Sierra Leone), and I received very good feedback on my teaching, both from the pastor/students, and from a long-time friend who knows the difference between good and bad professors. So I began to realize that maybe teaching wasn’t just something that I wished I was good enough at to be used by God in an academic setting, but something that I am good enough at for.

iv. Beth began to feel much more capable of managing life in a foreign country. I’m not sure why – perhaps it was some combination of increased faith in God, hearing how the Miskimens were doing, our kids being older, and our family managing well without me for almost three weeks this fall. But my precious wife, who before couldn’t imagine doing more than surviving on the mission field, could now trust that God could help her do better than that.

v. And one of the biggest things that happened to me last year that changed things for us was…preaching through the Gospel of Matthew (okay, through about half of it).

We’ve been going through Matthew together. So you’ve learned a lot of the same things that I’ve been learning. Jesus demands a lot from His disciples. But He also promises a lot. And I began to find myself asking myself this question: “If I really believed what Jesus says, how would I live my life differently?”

Jesus is not a Jerk

This wasn't the title for my sermon yesterday. But it perhaps could have been, since this incident makes it look like Jesus doesn't care about this Canaanite woman and her daughter, and that He wouldn't help her until she sort of outsmarted Him.

Matthew 15:21-28

21 Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon.
“There” – the place Jesus went from, appears to be the land of Genessaret, a plain on the NW shore of the Sea of Galilee. So after having a minor confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes (that we talked about two Sundays ago), in which Jesus condemned them for following the traditions of the elders instead of God’s commands, Jesus went from Jewish territory to the district of Tyre and Sidon. That district was NOT Jewish territory. Most of the people who lived there were descendants of the tribes of people that were driven out of the Promised Land when God gave the land to His people after the Exodus from Egypt. So most of the people living in that district were not Jews, but…Gentiles. And that will be important for us to remember.

22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.”

We’re not surprised that the woman who came to Jesus was a Canaanite, since that’s mostly who lived there. What we should be surprised about is what this Gentile, Canaanite woman called Jesus, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” Calling Jesus “Lord” could have meant that she believed that Jesus was divine. But it also could have just been a sign of respect. But “Son of David” was clear. This woman somehow learned what the OT taught, that a particular descendant of King David would one day come and bring restoration to God’s people and kingdom. The healing miracles that Jesus did were evidence that He was that Son of David. And this woman must have heard about those miracles – since she was asking for one for her daughter.

So this woman is crying out to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. It says that she “began to cry out,” but the kind of word there usually refers to an action that is repeated, which seems to have been the case, judging from the disciples’ reaction in the next verse.

23 But He (Jesus) did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.”

So this lady keeps crying out to Jesus for help. And Jesus…ignores her. That wasn’t very nice. And it’s not the way Jesus typically treated people, was it? So was He ignoring her because she was a Gentile and not a Jew and, therefore, He had no desire or intention to help her? Or…was He ignoring her at first in order to teach a lesson to His disciples – and to us? We’ll see.

So Jesus ignored the lady at first. But the disciples couldn’t ignore her. They were getting annoyed. So they asked Jesus to send her away.

Now…this is not so simple. If you’re like me, when you first read this, you think that the disciples just want Jesus to get rid of her. “Jesus, tell her to get lost. Send her away without getting what she’s asking for.” But some scholars think that the disciples meant, “Give her what she wants so she’ll go away and leave us alone.” It’s not perfectly clear whether the disciples wanted Jesus to send her away with or without healing her daughter as she was requesting. So while it’s interesting to try to figure this out, we don’t need to know the answer in order to get the point.

24 But He (Jesus) answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Whether the disciples were asking Jesus to heal the woman’s daughter or not, the reason that Jesus didn’t immediately do it is because of what His mission was. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Now…this could sound like Jesus came only for the Jews, and so we Gentiles were and are out of luck. But there are plenty of other things in the Gospels – and even in the Gospel of Matthew – that keep us from arriving at a conclusion like that. The first people recorded in Matthew who worship Jesus are Gentile wise men. Jesus is said to be a “light to the Gentiles.” He healed the servant of a Gentile, Roman centurion and commended that Gentile for his great faith. In Mt 24, Jesus says that before the end comes, the Good News of the kingdom of heaven will be preached to all the nations – and “nations” and “Gentiles” is the same word. And the Gospel ends with Jesus giving the great commission – to make disciples of all nations – of all the Gentiles. So there is no way that Jesus means that He’s only here to help the Jews, but that we Gentiles are out of luck.

But…there is still a matter of priority. It’s not that the Jews are more important than the Gentiles. But…the mission to the Jews was to be first chronologically – in time. The Jews were the descendants of those to whom God had made promises that led up to the arrival of Jesus – people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And because of that, it was important for the Jews to see and hear this Good News first, before it was the Gentiles’ “turn.”

So there is a good chance that when Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” what He means is, “Although my death and resurrection will result in the salvation of people – Gentiles – from every nation, my personal ministry of preaching and teaching and healing – during my earthly life – is meant for the Jews. It is my disciples who will take that ministry to the Gentiles.”

So you see that Jesus could have been explaining that His personal ministry – during those three or three-and-a-half years – was a mission to the Jews that He had been sent on, even though it would eventually bless all the nations. In other words, if Jesus never spoke to, preached to, or healed a Gentile, He would have still fulfilled the purpose for which He had been sent. This is why the book of Romans repeats the phrase “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (1:16; 2:9,10).

It’s tough to tell whether Jesus said this only to the disciple, or also to the Canaanite woman. But whether she what Jesus said or not, she wasn’t giving up…

25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”

So not only did this lady call Jesus “Lord” and “Son of David,” now she was bowing down on her face to plead for Jesus’ help. And Jesus decided it was time to speak directly to her.

26 And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Now this doesn’t sound very nice, does it? Is Jesus really calling this lady and her daughter dogs? The Jews were in the habit of calling Gentiles dogs. So it’s not impossible.

But it seems that Jesus is really just making the point that things should be used as they are intended to be used. When parents buy bread for their children (notice that it’s the children’s bread referred to here) – when parents buy bread for their children, it would be wrong to take that bread and throw it to the dogs instead of to the children. The dogs would be satisfied at the children’s expense. The children would go hungry. They would go without what they needed and what was meant for them.

We get a little bit of help from the Gospel of Mark here. There are a number of true stories in the Gospels that are told in more than one of the Gospels. And because space was limited and because each of the Gospel writers had a specific purpose in writing under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, sometimes one of them would include details that another didn’t. Here is how Mark (7:27) records what Jesus said at this point. “Let the children be satisfied first, for it not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

What do we see from Mark? That Jesus’ point was not about Jews being children and Gentiles being dogs, so that Jews matter and Gentiles don’t. His point was that there is a proper order that must be followed. Jesus’ earthly ministry was for the Jews. But, as Eph 2:13 says, those “who formerly were far off (Gentiles) have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” The death of Jesus would forever change things for the Gentiles. Before the death of Jesus, their only hope of being one of God’s people was to become Jewish, which they could do. But once Jesus died, the door was open for them to receive forgiveness and eternal life without becoming Jewish.

But when Jesus and this woman had this conversation, they were still living in the time of “let the children be satisfied first.” So Jesus wasn’t telling her that God didn’t care about her. But He was telling her that the personal ministry that He had been sent to perform was meant for the Jews. And…He seems to have been setting her up for an expression of great faith – (1) because we and the disciples need to know what “great faith” is, and (2) because the object of her great faith points to the amazing quality of God’s grace.

Listen to what she said in response to Jesus…

27 But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

Now…it’s important to notice how the woman might have responded to Jesus. If you were asking someone for help, and they said something to you like Jesus said to this woman – (It’s not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs) – you might get a little upset – especially if you felt that, at some level, you had a right to expect them to help you.

You might say, “What? Am I a dog? Am I worthless? Don’t I matter too?”

But what does this woman say? First of all, she agrees with Jesus. “Yes, Lord,” she says. “You’re right. What was meant for the children should not be taken away from the children and given to someone or something it was NOT meant for. You’re right.”

She doesn’t act like Jesus has any kind of obligation to help her. She doesn’t ask Jesus to adjust his mission or to make an exception. But she does believe that if she, like the little house dogs that ate the table scraps that fell on the floor, could just get a little bit of the leftovers – the overflow – of God’s grace through Jesus, that it would be enough…to heal her daughter.

“Lord, I’m not asking you to give me what belongs to someone else. Surely the grace that you give to the lost sheep of the house of Israel is so great, so huge, that even when you take care of them, there would be crumbs left over for me. Lord, could I just have a crumb of your grace, even though it wasn’t meant for me?”

And points are made about God’s grace and about what it means to have “great faith” – points we’ll come back to. So Jesus heals the woman’s daughter of the demonization that she was suffering from.

28 Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once.

Some observations made on the basis of this passage:

What about God's grace should amaze us?

1. As Gentiles, we have no right to expect God’s grace

2. Even God’s leftovers are powerful.

3. If Gentiles are outsiders who have no right to expect to receive or experience God’s grace…and if even the leftovers of God’s grace that Jesus was free to give to outsiders was enough to heal a demonized girl…then just what can we Gentiles expect from God now that (1) by faith in Jesus we’ve been incorporated among God’s people so that we are no longer outsiders, and (2) we are now the rightful recipients of grace of God that is intended for the children and we don’t have to settle for the leftovers?

What does it mean to have “great faith”?

1. Great faith is faith that Jesus cares even for those He has not obligated Himself to care for.

2. Great faith is faith that Jesus has enough grace to fulfill His obligations and still have leftovers.

3. Great faith is faith that doesn’t give up when our prayers aren’t immediately answered.

4. Great faith is the faith of someone who knows they don’t deserve what they are asking for.

Ultimately, great faith is faith that God's grace is great.

Can you smile at the future?

I was reading Proverbs 31 to prepare for tonight's small group. And one particular phrase that describes the "excellent wife" caught my eye. It's in v.25: "And she smiles at the future." We often fear the future, so that we frown at it. If we smile, it's often wishful thinking - as though we were smiling at a wished-for future, rather than the real future. But the excellent wife smiles at the future. I would like to smile at the future, too. What would that take? Here is the start of my answer: (1) Trust in the Lord (Prov 3:5-6), so that you don't have to fear the future. (2) Fear the Lord (1:7, and many other places in Proverbs), taking His word seriously and obeying it, so that you can be confident that you will not do things that bring unnecessary difficulty into your life. (3) Put your hope in God's eternal plan. Even if the more immediate future may involve challenges and suffering, the eventual and never-ending future will surpass our wildest dreams. (4) Train your children to fear the Lord, and not just to behave in certain ways. Many of our fears of the future are related to the well-being of our children. But if we teach our children to do numbers 1,2, and 3, above, we can look forward to their futures with confidence and optimism.

It's not too late

Yesterday, I mentioned to the folks in our church that, since January is over, it might feel too late to start trying to read through the Bible this year. But how about taking a one-year plan to read through the Bible or through the New Testament and just pretend that January starts today. I'm positive that reading through the Bible or part of it from February 2010 through January 2011 will be just as beneficial as reading through it from January 2010 through December 2010. So it's not too late. Get started today! And if you'd like, you can use our church's Bible reading blog as an encouragement as you go.

A pretty cool thought

As I was thinking and praying today during my sermon preparation, I was trying to figure out why Jesus said what He said in a certain passage. And as I prayed about it, I realized that I was able to ask Jesus why He said what He said. What a joy and a privilege it is to be able to ask the One who said it why He said it and what it means!

Praying with faith

This is an excerpt from my post this morning on the Cross Point Bible Reading Blog, where we are reading through the Bible together this year using the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan.

Acts 12:15-16 Apparently, fervent prayer (verse 5) is not necessarily prayer that is full of faith, since the people who had gathered to pray for Peter had an easier time believing that Peter's angel was outside their door than that Peter himself was there. Fortunately, God does not wait until we are full of faith to answer our prayers. There are times when we pray mostly because we know we should pray, rather than because we really expect God to answer our prayers. But let's start praying with the kind of faith that isn't so surprised when God grants what we have asked for.

Before it gets much later in January...

Before we get any further into January, I want to make one last effort to encourage you to use a Bible reading plan to read through all or part of the Bible this year. I am using the Discipleship Journal Bible reading plan, which has me reading in four parts of the Bible every day (well, 25 days a month). That may sound like a lot – 4-7 chapters a day, depending on the length of the chapters. But I can honestly say that it’s a joy to have several different ideas from God’s word put into my mind each morning.

Now…you may not think that you have time to read that much of the Bible every day. But I am surprised how little time it is taking me. This morning, it took less than half an hour. And because I’m a nerd, I was checking the Greek a few times, and then writing some things about these readings on the church’s new Bible reading blog. So it should take you even less time, even if you are reading thoughtfully (and I hope you are!), rather than just to “get through” it.

If that still sounds like a lot of time to spend reading the Bible, then we should take a look at 1 Timothy 4:6-8 to put things into perspective.

“6 In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following. 7 But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 8 for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."

There are two concepts that we should take note of here. The first is in verse 8. “Bodily discipline” (or training) is somewhat profitable. It helps us a little. But godliness is profitable for all things. Somehow, we find it easy to take care of the health of our bodies. Even if we aren’t as good about diet and exercise as we should be, we don’t completely neglect our bodies. We want to keep them in decent working order. But those efforts aren’t nearly as important – as profitable – as training for godliness. And when we train ourselves for godliness – which includes the discipline (something we make ourselves do) of regular Bible reading – we do something that isn’t just a little bit helpful, but helpful for all things. In fact, it is helpful for both the present life and the life to come!

The second thing we should notice is in verse 6. It’s the word “nourished.” Even if we don’t exercise much, we do make sure that our bodies are nourished – usually three times a day. We actually devote a lot of time to the nourishment of our bodies – not only the preparing and eating of the food, but the work to make money to buy the food too. Well, if physical training isn’t as profitable as training for godliness, do we think that physical nourishment is more profitable than spiritual nourishment? This must be why Paul spoke of being “nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine…” Do we think in terms of being nourished by words? Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sure did.

So as we consider what we think we do and don’t have time for, I want to suggest (and this challenges me too!) that if we are in the habit of being sure that our bodies our nourished by food, then we should be even more sure that our souls are nourished by God’s Word. Feeding your soul is too important to not make time for it. What will it take for you to make sure that your soul is adequately fed?

**By the way, another interesting article might be about how our bodies tell us that they are hungry so we don’t forget to feed them. But our souls don’t do this, so we might forget to feed them. Or do our souls tell us that they are hungry? Perhaps our short tempers, feelings of sadness or anxiety, lustful thoughts, etc. are the hunger pangs of souls that have not been adequately nourished. That’s something for all of us to think about.

A Note on Taking Notes

I want to strongly encourage anyone who regularly reads the Bible (which I also strongly encourage you to do) to keep a notebook and pen or pencil handy as they read. You may not write down anything incredibly profound, or anything that nobody has ever thought of before. But something changes when you read with the intention of writing things down. You pay closer attention to what you are reading. All of us, at one time or another, have been reading and then had to go back and reread it because we were looking at the words without really paying attention. One way that I have been helped to do this less often is to read while intending to write.

You can write down all kinds of things - verses that seem important, observations that you make, questions that come to mind, and things that you learn that you should do. Let's not just read the Bible. Let's read the Bible thoughtfully. Taking notes as you read can help that to happen.

Cross Point Bible Reading Project

Happy New Year! Today, we start our project of reading through the Bible in 2010. Using the Bible reading plan from the Discipleship Journal, this will require reading only about 4 chapters of the Bible each day, which should only take 15-20 minutes - less if you don't read thoughtfully, but we don't want that to happen. So please consider joining us. Each day (25 readings a month, so not every day, Sundays will normally be off), at crosspointbiblereading.blogspot.com, I will post the references to what I read, along with some observations or question. You are invited to comment there or to ask you own questions as you read too.