Here’s what I’ve come to learn about Scripture; it reveals to us what is true about life, reality, and the world we live in. The words don’t make things true, they tell us what is already true. For example, the Bible says things like, “God is love.” God existed a long time before these words were ever written. God didn’t just become love after John wrote his first letter to the church, but the Bible reveals to us what is already true; that God is the essence, the originator of love. Why is this important? Because we aren’t supposed to just read scripture, we’re supposed to discover the truth of it outside of the pages; we’re supposed to actually live it out. So when I read things like Romans chapter 5 when it says, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope”, I can believe it because I haven’t just read the words on the page, but I’ve discovered the truth that they reveal in my life and the world around me.
I’ve come across a word that has grabbed a hold of my attention and won’t seem to let go. Righteousness. It jumped out at me while I was reading Romans chapter 6, which makes sense because I think that righteousness is just about every other word in that chapter. As I read this word over and over again I couldn’t help but ask the question, “What is righteousness?” I’ve heard this word so many times and it seemed that I could tell you what it meant, but when I tried to explain it to myself, I did a horrible job. Kind of like someone who pretends to know about something just so he can be part of a conversation. The way I seemed to understand it was that it was synonymous with obedience. Someone who was righteous was someone who followed the rules; who didn’t break the law, but as I read through the chapter I began to think that I had fallen incredibly short in terms of understanding the depth of righteousness. See I don’t think Jesus came to make us into rule followers, but I think he came to do so much more. He wasn’t about behavior modification; he came to make us into new creations.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment