The Bible Blog: Part 2

Acknowledging the Purpose of Scripture

 

 

 

Several months ago I took my wife and kids to Disney Land. Just before we left the house I used "Map Quest" to get directions. After typing in my home address and the address of Disney Land I was printing out step by step directions that even a monkey could follow. Together my wife and I followed the map to a "T" and in just six hours we were standing at the entrance of Disney Land with four ecstatic little girls.

 

 

Now I want you to read this next part slowly and think about it.

 

 

If you were to come looking for my family inside of Disney Land about an hour after we entered the park, what are the chances you would find us all sitting on a bench by the Dumbo ride, studying the map? This is exactly what the Christian world looks like today. It's a day at Disney Land were thousands of people have filled the park. However, all the rides are empty, there are no lines at the restaurants, no one is paying attention to the characters walking around and the light parade goes unnoticed. Why? Because everyone is sitting around in clusters studying the map and going over how they got there.

 

 

The purpose of the Bible is to lead us to Christ, who is LOVE IN THE FLESH. For some reason however, we have gotten the idea that once we have found Christ, we must continue to study the map. To take it a step further, we have even taught people that their entire relationship with Christ is now lived out through reading the Bible! If this were true, you would think that in all of Jesus' teachings and preachings, He would have at least ONCE stopped midway in one of his sermons and said, "Oh and by the way, in about forty years from now a bunch of guys are going to write letters back and forth to each other and in about three hundred and fifty years from now those letters are going to be bound in a book, and if you don't read it everyday of your life YOU WILL NEVER KNOW GOD".

 

 

Why didn't the Apostle Paul tell the churches he wrote letters to that they had to read and re-read and study and meditate on those letters over and over for the rest of their lives in order to grow in the Lord? If our daily Bible reading were as important as we have been told it is today; why wasn't it mentioned even once by one of the authors in the New Testament? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Jude, James, Paul, never once told us that we had to make the reading of their letters a daily religious ritual. You would think that someone would have written about it if it was really as important as we teach today.

 

 

What did all those Christians after Paul's time do to have a relationship with God? After Christ returned to heaven, there were almost fifteen hundred years worth of Christians who didn't have a Bible in their home. How in the world did they keep their heads above water without a Bible to study every day? Why would God send His only Son into the world to live a perfect life, die for our sins and be raised to life again almost fifteen hundred years before the printing press was invented if the Bible was the route we humans were to take to have relationship with God? How is that a better covenant than what Moses had? God spoke with Moses face to face and now after Jesus was crucified, we have to relate to Him through a book. Does that sound right to you?

 

 

It's interesting to me that we tell people that the way they get close to God is by reading their Bible regularly. The Pharisees not only did this, but they went on to memorize large portions of Scripture and even wore articles of clothing to remind them daily of what they had read. However, when God stood right in front of them in the flesh, they didn't recognize Him from Adam. Jesus later told the people that the two most important commandments were to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul" and that "the second commandment is like the first………Love your neighbor as yourself". Then he said, "All of the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments". He was literally saying that if you love, you will BECOME the Bible! You can put it down and walk away from it forever because LOVE is the embodiment of the entire Bible! Once again: the purpose of the Bible is to lead us to Christ. Who is Christ? Love in the flesh!

 

 

I do not need a "post it note" on my refrigerator reminding me not to murder my wife and kids. Why? Because I love them and that law is so far beneath me, it doesn't even apply to me. THE LAW IS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T LOVE. When you know Christ, you know love and when you know love, you are no longer a "spreader of the message"; YOU BECOME THE MESSAGE.

 

 

The Consequences of the Trade

 

 

 

Our teachings about the Bible and it's purpose in our lives have basically made us a generation of dead people. Since we don't believe we can hear God on our own without the Bible, we find ourselves searching the Scriptures to find out whether something is right or wrong and we don't even stop to look into our own heart and ask ourselves.

 

 

I honestly believe that out of this zombie and lifeless belief system, we have no other option but to blindly stumble throughout life clinging to our "WWJD" bracelet in hopes that we can survive yet another day. It's a very depressing time we live in when we have to stop everything and analyze what Jesus would do in this situation or that before we act. It's fake. It's scripted and it's from the head. Even Charles Manson can do that. Do you think that Satan worshipers need to wear a "WWSD" bracelet so they'll know how to act in certain situations? Of course not! If you cut a Satan worshiper off on the freeway, he doesn't need to ponder how Satan would react. He literally BECOMES Satan right there in the middle of the freeway! Yet we have Christians today who only know ABOUT Jesus because they read about Him in a book. He's a character in the Bible that they've been told to do their best to study and mimic.

 

 

When tragedy or hardship comes into their life they have no other choice but to "STAND ON SCRIPTURE" and hope for the best. Because there is no real relationship established beyond what they read in the book, they can only quote the book to the Author in hopes that He will recognize the passage and honor what He said. I personally know hundreds of Christians who spend their entire life standing on this Scripture or that in an effort to get what they want. It's all they have. There is nothing beyond the words they read in the book. Their relationship is not with God; it's with their Bible.

 

 

This teaching about the Bible ultimately causes people to retreat from relationship with God. If you think it through you'll find that a personal relationship with Him isn't even needed anymore. In fact, if some people could have their way, they would just have God pack up and leave Heaven altogether. The Bible is basically "Auto Pilot" for Heaven. God doesn't even have to think anymore. If it's in the Bible He has no choice but to do it. And He has covered everything in the Bible so Heaven should pretty much run itself from this point on. And we wonder why people today have no real intimacy with the Father. Listening to many Christians "witness" in today's age is perhaps the most grueling experience I can think of. So often it seems that their entire witness is based on what they have read in a book. Just because you read about a crime in the paper, doesn't mean that you can go to court during the trial and be a witness. Sadly, that's what our religion has produced in recent years. A bunch of well read people who haven't really witnessed a thing.

 

 

Know Your Bible People!

 

 

 

I had a friend several years ago who was browsing through a book store when he noticed a young lady thumbing through one of my books on relationships. As he walked by her he leaned in and said, "Get that book, it will change your life". She smiled and thanked him for the tip. About three months later, this lady showed up to my church. She had read the book and found out that I was teaching locally, so she thought she would come to my group. She was excited to see my friend who had told her about the book, and immediately approached him and thanked him for telling her to buy it. He was terrified and embarrassed because he had not yet read the book himself. He didn't have the guts to tell her, so he just decided to act as if he had read it. After the service she wanted to stay and talk about relationships with my friend. Instead of just coming clean, he decided to just let himself go and talk about relationships from his heart. He was surprised that she didn't seem to catch on that he hadn't read the book.

 

Immediately after service he ran to the bookstore and bought a copy for himself. When he got home and started reading it he was absolutely amazed to find that during his conversation with this young lady, he had actually quoted entire sentence structures of my book, word for word, without even knowing it! How could he do that?

 

HE KNEW THE AUTHOR!

 

The problem with thinking we can know anyone personally through a book is that it's downright impossible. Books can only record what was said and what was done. If we try to define the inner Heart of God based on those things, we will be left with a heartless vending machine God who acts and responds the same way to everyone every time. His very personality and individuality gets lost in the translation.

 

If you were to follow me around for twenty years and write down everything I said and did during that time you would end up with a book the size of the phone book. If you looked on page 1339 and saw that I did this or that, and then turned to page 897 and found that I said this or that, you could come to the conclusion that if one of my children got out of bed after I put them down, I would break their legs. If you know me personally however, you'd know that I would never do that.

 

 

It's interesting that I have some people who have read every book I've ever written and listened to every teaching series I've ever taught, but they don't know me from Adam. If they were to try and enter my house I would call the police and slap a restraining order on them. Just because they've read my books and listened to my teachings, doesn't mean they know me personally.

 

 

I have other friends who haven't even opened ONE of my books, and have never listened to even thirty seconds of any teaching I've ever recorded, however they know me personally and I know them. My house is their house. My possessions are their possessions. How can this be? Simple; they love my children. When you love my kids, you will have found the quickest and most direct route to my heart!!

 

 

God is NOT in the Bible; He is in his Children. "If you love, you know God and you are known by Him. If you do not love, you do not know God, nor have you ever seen him".

 

 

 

Once you know the Author of the Bible, you have the Word living inside your heart! We have basically taught an entire generation of people that they have received a deaf, dumb and blind God. He's like a computer. When you get him home, you have to load Windows and a hundred other programs on Him before He's of any use. That's ridiculous! When you receive God's Spirit into your heart, you not only get Him, but you get all His Words as well.

 

 

The Truth Within You

 

 

 

Think about it. Have you ever had something in the Bible literally explode of the pages and blow your mind? The reason that happened is because it exploded from WITHIN you! It was already living inside of you. That's why your heart almost leaps out of your chest when you come across a truth in Scripture.

 

 

Sadly we subscribe to a religion that pretty much encourages people to have a relationship with their Bible over God Himself. It's like there is something within all of us that would rather spend time with an inanimate object then with a living being. This is why so many people don't have a problem making the trade. Real intimacy is intimidating to us.

 

 

Could you imagine a wife on her wedding night coming out of the bathroom dressed in a beautiful negligee ready to present herself to her husband for the first time, and he is sitting on the edge of the bed reading a letter she wrote to him ten years ago? She says, "Honey here I am, come over here", and he doesn't even look up because he's too busy reading the letter. That is exactly what I see in modern day Christianity! We have access to the real God and we insist on reading the letter over and over instead of actually connecting with Him.

 

Our teachings have turned the Bible into a spiritual walkie-talkie between us and God. We say things like, "The main way God speaks to us is through the Bible". When I became a Christian I was personally told that when I pray; it's me talking to God, and when I read my Bible; it's God talking to me. For the most part we have all been taught that unless we are reading the Bible we will never hear from God.

 

 

This raises a whole series of questions for me. First of all I would like to know where the Bible even says that. It's interesting that Scripture doesn't even make that claim about itself, yet we preach it like it's an age old truth that God Himself set up thousands of years ago. Most of us have heard it so many times that we don't even stop to question whether or not it's true. We have learned to just accept it as truth and do our best to keep up.

 

 

I am not suggesting that God can't speak to us through the Bible. He can speak to us anyway He chooses to. I'm just debating the mindset that believes that this is the PURPOSE of Scripture, and the main way He chooses to talk to us.

 

 

I heard one Pastor teach that God won't even tell us something if it's already written in the Bible because we can read it for ourselves. Hummmm……..What if you're illiterate? What if you're illiterate AND deaf, so you can't even listen to the Bible on tape? What if you're a prisoner of war without a Bible? What if you're a child and haven't learned to read yet? What if you're an elderly person and can't see the words? I know this sounds amusing, but if you really think about what we have been taught, it's absolutely comical.

 

 

Many people who are reading this are likely to say to themselves, "What about King David who said that he meditated on the Word night and day"?

 

 

First of all, when David meditated on the Word, he was meditating on THE LAW (the first five books of the Old Testament, otherwise known as the Pentateuch). Believe it or not; the Bible as we know it today does not refer to itself as "The Word of God". Any place where the term "The Word" is spoken about in Scripture, it's referring to THE LAW. That's what David meditated on night and day. He had too; David was not like you and me. He didn't have the Holy Spirit living inside of him. In our time, "The Word became Flesh" and now dwells among us. JESUS is the Word, not the Bible. If you have Jesus living in your Heart; you have the Word living in your heart. David's "Word" was only a shadow of what was to come. Imagine if all you were given was a shadow of something. You would have no choice but to study it from every possible angle in hopes that you might find out what was casting that shadow.

 

We have been given the very One who casts that shadow! Why in the world would we ever be tempted to study the shadow when the one who casts the shadow is standing right before us? Our teachings on the Bible have turned us into shadow chasers who refuse to acknowledge the Shadow Maker.

 

 

It is interesting that although David had to meditate on the Word night and day (and he clearly had a deep love and respect for it) when David needed to hear from God, he didn't turn to the Scriptures. He walked directly into the temple and confronted God himself. In fact, I have not found a single place in all of Scripture where anyone turned to Scripture in order to hear from God.

 

 

I think that understanding the purpose and value of a thing is extremely important. If I bought you a new car, and you thought that a car was to be used as a house, it wouldn't take more than a few days for your car to start stinking to high heavens. Until you understand that cars are made for transportation, you will never truly experience it's blessings. The same is true with the Bible. We have made declarations about it that have nothing to do with it's real purpose and value. This false understanding of what the Bible is for has caused us to become a spiritually retarded generation. Christian chat rooms and forums are filled every day of the week with people machine gunning Scriptures back and forth in heated debate. Some of us can't even talk normal anymore because our vocabulary is filled with King James quotations. Authors can't even make a spiritual point without having to "back it up" with Scripture. It's pretty sad when Christians who are filled with the Holy Spirit have to have a Scripture verse to back up a spiritual principal that even a child can understand. Unfortunately in today's Christian world we have been taught to think in Bible verses. We've become as soulless as computers.

 

 

The Deadly Blow

 

The nail in the coffin to all of this dysfunction and chaos comes the moment we swallow the equally devastating and destructive teaching that says, "Don't trust your heart". It comes from that Bible verse where Jeremiah says "the heart is deceitful above all things….." So now in addition to teaching us that we can't make one spiritual move without the Bible, we're also taught that we are supposed to shut ourselves down from our heart and refrain from any future consultations with it. This is preached all over America and it's a lie from the pit of Hell! I honestly believe that these two teachings together are a recipe for spiritual death.

 

 

Those who preach that we are not supposed to trust our heart have effectively sealed the fate of their listeners. Make no mistake about it; this is an extremely dark teaching that has nothing to do with the truth of God. To even entertain such an appalling idea is like swallowing a cyanide tablet into your soul. I believe that this terrible mentality is what has ultimately turned the Christian religion into a spiritual veal farm. The moment you buy into this absurdity you can NEVER know the Heart of God. All future possibilities of intimacy with Him are annihilated completely. It seals the separation between man and God and ultimately catapults us back to Old Testament times.

 

 

Come now, let us reason together. If we are not supposed to ever trust our hearts, how in the world can we ever know Him? Think about it for a moment. When you became a Christian; where did you ask Jesus to live? Your heart of course! What good would it be for the Spirit of Christ to live in your heart if you aren't allowed to "go there"? How could we ever forgive someone from our heart if we can't trust it? Why would God write His laws on the hearts of men if they were not allowed to consult that part of their being? Whey would the Bible tell us to "sing and make music in our hearts" if they were not to be trusted? We couldn't even fulfill the commandment that Jesus said was most important, "Love the Lord you God with all your heart, mind and soul". Jesus also said that "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you", and there is no doubt that He was speaking about our hearts. The irony of this is that this popular teaching tells us that we must rely only on the Bible and not on our hearts. If we can't trust our hearts, how will we ever be able to read and interpret the Bible properly? Wouldn't our deceptive hearts mess everything up and interpret it all wrong?

 

 

Trust me in this, the only part of us that is eternal and connected to God, is OUR HEARTS! It is a conspiracy from Satan himself to try to get every Christian person to deny themselves access and completely stop trusting their hearts. The very birth and life of a believer is lived out through the heart. This is why the Bible says "if you confess with your mouth AND BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART that Jesus Christ is Lord, you will be saved". The next time someone quotes that "The heart is deceitful" verse in an effort to get you to think from your head, you just remind them that when you believed in God's one and only Son, your heart was resurrected with Christ and you are a new creation.

 

 

These two teachings about the Bible and the heart of man completely rely on one another to survive. You MUST be heartless in order to buy the things you have been taught about the Bible and if you deny your heart; you definitely need the Bible in order to survive. A good friend of mine told someone he was ministering to, that "The very pipeline through which God intended to touch the world and reveal Himself to mankind is the very pipeline you have shut down to keep you from sinning". If you abandon your heart because you think only bad things come from it, keep in mind that you are also closing the door to things like, Love, Compassion, Relationship, Spirituality and a thousand other things you were created for.

 

 

Reasons to Read

 

 

I believe that there are many wonderful reasons to read the Bible without having to add to them in an effort to manipulate or control people. One of the greatest things that happens when you read it, is that it helps to connect your heart with your head. If the Word is living in the heart of a Christian; reading the Bible can cause the mind and the heart to become one. In other words, it will remind you of what already exists in your heart. Getting your head in line with your heart (for some people) is a full time job. When you read with your mind the words that exist in your heart, you become more and more aware of heart things, and you gain experience at being able to determine the difference.

 

 

I also think that knowing the history of our faith is extremely important. Understanding how it all happened and why you needed to be saved in the first place is absolutely essential. Scripture also gives us hundreds of accounts of different people's interactions with God from the beginning of time. It explains so much about our nature and what we are inclined to do on our own. The Bible really prepares us in many ways for life. It's full of heroes that inspire and motivate us. It's like watching a Rocky movie. When you come out of the theater, you're ready to conquer the world. Let's face it; we all need examples to rouse us into action.

 

 

There are also times in our lives when we just don't love. Even though the author of love Himself is living in our hearts; sometimes we purposefully decide to not go there. When we do this, the Bible is great because it sets us straight. The bottom line is, some of us go through moments in our life where we just need things written out in black and white. I can tell you that I'm so glad I've studied the Scriptures as much as I have. It's given me parameters in which to open my heart and live my life. On my off days when I'm not consulting my heart about a matter, I'm glad I have the black and white word for word passage that sets my momentarily blind self straight.

 

 

Many of us have a worldly view of what love is. Scripture is wonderful in this sense. It clearly draws a distinction between man's idea of love and the truth. When you read about the truth of what love is, you'll find little explosions taking place in your heart, and your head will immediately come into alignment with it. I think the Bible is great at teaching each and every one of us how to locate and find treasures within our heart. It's also a great corrective tool for us when we're just off our rocker and thinking purely human thoughts. It's great to know that in those moments, we have a safety net that's set in place to catch us and gently guide us back on the right path.

 

In a lot of ways, I look at the Bible as the teacher's manual. I think we are all supposed to do the work on our own, but it's great to know that when we come upon a problem or issue where we can't find the answer within us; we have the answers written down somewhere. I DON'T believe however, that we are supposed to live our lives carrying the teacher's manual around, just to get the answers without even searching our heart first.

 

 

I'll be completely honest with you. I understand why most Christians haven't read the Bible all the way through. We have made it a law. It's natural for humans to do the exact opposite of anything that becomes law. The moment we turned the Bible into something we HAD to read, we lost interest. With that in mind, I would like to say that I am still a bit mystified to find that there are millions of self proclaiming Christians who still haven't "read the book". I get why that happens, but it's still mind blowing to me. In the back of my mind I think that the reason why so many Christians don't seem to have the desire to read the Bible is because they were tricked into Christianity in the first place. I think many of us were shoved into it by manipulative fear tactics or religious emotionalism. I'll have to write about that in another blog.

 

 

I think that because we have made it such a SPIRITUAL thing, people start reading and then begin to wonder why they aren't getting the spiritual goose bumps they were told about; so they quit. Perhaps they feel like they're doing something wrong. My advice is this: read it anyway. Just sit down and read it from beginning to end. Read it like you would any other book. Don't expect a spiritual experience. It may or may not happen. If you are a Christian, read the book about Christ. If for no other reason at all; read it to say that you have. I think every Christian should read the Bible all the way through at least once. With so many crazy preachers out there, doesn't it make sense to have read the book so that you'll know for yourself whether or not what they are saying is right? Why put your life in someone else's hands? Wouldn't it be nice to know for sure if someone was pulling your leg or misquoting Scripture to get you to do something?

 

 

Here is a great verse that pretty much says it all in terms of why you should read your bible:

 

 

2 Timothy 3:14 NIV

¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, ¹⁵and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

 

 

PLEASE pass this on to everyone you know who needs to read this!!! Together we can reach a world of hurting people who need this freedom. Blessings.