10 Oct Book it! (Because a Bible that is falling apart indicates a life that isn’t!) Part 8
Recently I was in Jamaica ministering for my dear friends, Pastors Richard and Joye Keane of Family Church on the Rock. I was simply sitting in my chair about to go up to minister and I had my Bible open. Unbeknownst to me, one of the women on our mission team was sitting directly behind me and took a picture of my open Bible. She then posted this on her Facebook page and it was then circulated all over the place. In this picture, my Bible was a mess. The pages are covered in my notes and many pages are torn and some are falling out! On her Facebook page she posted, “Look, my Pastor’s Bible is falling apart…that means his life isn’t!”
My goal for you in this series is three-fold:
- To love the Word
- To learn the Word
- To live the Word
We have shared with you two “Bible beholdings”:
- If you want to know God you must know the Bible.
- Prayer is talking to God. The Bible is God talking to us.
We then began to share with you “Four Awesome Assignments to Assist you with the Word”:
- Activate the Word
Three ways to activate God’s Word:
1.) Faith activates the Word (Heb. 4:2)
2.) Revelation activates faith (Eph. 1:18)
3.) Meditation activates revelation (Joshua 1:8).
2. Accept the Word (Matt. 7:24-27).
This month let’s continue….
3. Assimilate the Word (II Tim. 3:16-17).
As someone who has been in ministry for over 37 years, I have observed many Christians living what I call “compartmental Christianity”. In other words, we allow God into certain areas of our life but carefully exclude Him from others. You see athletes, actors and actresses give unashamed praise to God at award shows or on an athletic field, then you see them beating their wife or singing in a very ungodly video. They have effectively compartmentalized God.
I did this as a young believer after I first gave my life to Jesus. I got radically saved and gave every “room” in my “spiritual house” over to God, except for one…my dating life. In essence, I invited God into every area of my life but that area. I allowed Him to affect my decision making process in all areas of my life…just not my dating life. I compartmentalized God not understanding these verses in Mark 8:35-38:
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
In other words, whatever I hold back from God I ultimately lose. Whatever I give to God I ultimately gain! In my Christian immaturity, I was honestly just afraid that God would stick me with some woman who was spiritual but ugly (I hope that’s not too honest for you, but sadly, that is what I thought as a young believer). Since I did not allow God in that area I kept dating Christian women who were not who they said they were, and it was this area in my life that caused more heartache than any other!
Finally, I de-compartmentalized and let God take over this area. That’s when He brought me my beautiful and Godly wife, Anne! 27 wonderful years later I’m glad I let God out of my box!
Join us next week as we continue to share from this series…