Today's Scripture:
God's word is alive and working and is sharper than a double-edged sword. It cuts all the way into us, where the soul and the spirit are joined, to the center or our joints and bones. And it judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts.
Hebrews 4:12
The Bible is not your ordinary book. Like a surgeon's scalpel, it has the power to slice through lies to expose raw truth. It can prick a guilty conscience, heal a broken heart, or open eyes that have long been blind to God's existence. The verse in Hebrews is like the Bible's warning label. It lets you know that what you're holding in your hands should be handled carefully - and that it will leave a reader or listener a changed person.
That's because the Bible is much more than merely print on paper. The Bible is alive with the power of God's Spirit. Like Jesus, its genesis is both fully human and fully divine. Though ordinary people wrote it, God worked through those writer in an extraordinary way. Throughout the Bible's sixty-six books of history, prophecy, and guidelines for living, written over a period of six hundred years by more than thirty authors using three languages, there is consistency of purpose about God and his plan that mere coincidence could ever achieve.
Selah people' and friends the Bible is not a reference book to teach you about God.
The Bible is an invitation to connect with God in a personal way - and to learn more about yourself in the process.
The more time you spend reading the Bible and meditating on how God wants you to apply what you've read, the more you'll learn to recognize the whisper of God's Spirit in your life and to see his hand at work in the world around you.
"Get to know God better by becoming better acquainted with the Bible. Reading one psalm and a chapter from one of the Gospels each morning is a great way to begin."