Category: Bible (Page 9 of 10)

Eat The Word

June 26, 2008 / Allan / 3 Comments

“When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight.” ~Jeremiah 15:16

You are what you eat. We know that. We experience that. If a nursing mother eats fajitas for dinner with jalapenos and pica de gallo and salsa she’s going to be up all night. Not because she’s sick, but because her baby is sick. The fajitas have become a part of the mother. You are what you eat. I look in the mirror and I can see the cheeseburgers and Whoppers and Kettle Cooked Lays potato chips. They’ve become a big part of me. The biggest part.

Jeremiah says when your words came, I ate them. I digested them. I assimilated them. I made them a part of me.

“‘…eat this scroll that I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.’ So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.” ~Ezekiel 3:3

Ezekiel’s being called into God’s service. Speak for me to Israel. Speak my words. Teach my people. Be an example for them. And God doesn’t say hear my word, listen to my word, read my word, study my word. He says eat it. Eat this scroll. Eat the word. Make it a part of you. Be one with it. Fill your belly with it. Take it all in.

“I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth…” ~Revelation 10:9

John’s taking notes on the words of the angel. He’s writing it all down. He wants to record it. He wants to remember it. And the angel says don’t write it down. Eat it.

The words of Scripture are written in a way—and intended—to get inside us. The words deal specifically with the life and death of our souls. And they’re written to transform each of us into a person who fits, and into a life that fits, with our God and his perfect creation and his gracious salvation and his gathered community. The words of Scripture have the power of the Holy Spirit behind them, the power of God in them. And they’re passed on to us to create in us truth and beauty and goodness. And as we wrestle with them and meditate on them, as we turn them over and think about them and obsess over them, the words enter our souls like food enters the stomach. They spread through our entire system of blood and air and organs and nerves and functions and they become holiness and love and wisdom inside us.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” ~2 Timothy 3:16-17

Make no mistake, eating the Word does not result in doctrinal maturity or knowledgeable Christianity. We don’t study the Bible to know more. We study the Bible to do more. Living by the Bible, living by the Word of God, means we’re not interested in knowing more, we’re interested in doing more.

We don’t learn Scripture. We don’t study the Bible or use the Bible.

We eat it. We ingest it. We assimilate it.

We take it into our lives in such a way that it metabolizes into acts of love, cups of cold water, and prison and hospital visits. The words manifest themselves in casseroles and cakes, groceries delivered, comfort and encouragement, evangelism and justice and sacrifice, all done in the name of the Christ.

The Word of God is the standard. It’s the authority. And we don’t use it. We submit to it. It’s not for information. It’s for transformation.

May we be a people of the Word. And may our God bless his Word to be at work in us, transforming us and empowering us to become more and more like him.

Peace,

Allan

The Delightful Word

June 19, 2008 / Allan / 3 Comments

“The Bible tells us not how we should talk with God but what he says to us; not how we find the way to him, but how he has sought and found the way to us; not the right relation in which we must place ourselves in him, but the covenant which he has made with all who are Abraham’s spiritual children and which he has sealed once for all in Jesus Christ. It is this which is within the Bible. The Word of God is within the Bible.” ~Karl Barth

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” ~Psalm 119:103

After Oasis last night I visited for about an hour here in my study with some folks who wanted some more information about Legacy. We talked about spiritual formation and children’s education and Small Groups and new buildings and worship styles and evangelism. And we did our very best to stay off that A-B Line of thinking and talking. And right in the middle of our conversation, one man looked right at me and said, “You know what I really like about Legacy? I love how much Scripture is read here.”

Me, too.

Sadly, the holy Word of God isn’t read publicly anymore in too many churches. I cringe as I write those words. And I hate to believe that it’s true. But it is.

While I was in school at Austin Grad I served as a roaming visiting preacher, trying to get my feet wet, trying to gain some experience, trying very hard not to embarrass myself or the poor person who had invited me to speak. Inevitably, someone from the church would call me a few days in advance of my visit and ask for a Scripture reading. And on more than a few occasions, the kind person on the other line would balk at my suggestion.

“That seems too long,” the person would say. “Can we shorten that a little?”

“It’s six verses!” I’d reply. “Ideally, I’d like to have the whole chapter read.”

In too many churches the only time Scripture is read is right before the sermon, generally just one or two verses, usually by a pre-teen or teenager who’s not looked at the passage until the moment he’s standing before the holy assembly of God’s people.

I’m delighted that, here at Legacy, we uphold the Word of God and give it the prominence it deserves in our Christian assemblies. The Word is read publicly in big, meaty chunks. The Word opens our assemblies. It closes our assemblies. It’s read at the Table. It’s read by our elders and ministers. It’s read by the entire congregation in unison. It’s read by our young children and our older men.

And there’s a reason for that. Actually, there are many reasons for that.

The Bible is an instrument of God’s holy communication. God acts through his Word. He speaks through his Word. God is his Word. The Bible is not a book of man’s thoughts about God and the actions of God; the Bible is God’s intimate actions and thoughts about and regarding man. The Word of God creates and sustains life. The Word transforms us into his image. It gets inside us and shapes us. It molds us and moves us. It’s the vehicle by which God reveals himself to man. It saves. It’s the standard by which we’ll be judged. But the Word of God is not a threat or a burden. It’s a delight. It’s our hope and our joy. It’s our protection against temptation and sin. We live by the Word of God. Without the Word of God, we live in famine.

And so we read it here at Legacy. All the time.

And I was very glad last night when my new friend noticed.

Peace,

Allan

"Freeze!"

November 9, 2007 / Allan / 7 Comments

Allright, we can spend all weekend on this one.

During this Sunday’s sermon here at Legacy on the subject of applying the Word of God in our lives, I’m probably — no, definitely — going to say something about the ways we’ve slid into a seemingly casual attitude toward God’s Holy Scriptures. Specifically, I’m referring to the way folks wander up and down the aisles, enter and exit in and out of the main doors, people coming and going and visiting and otherwise not paying attention to the Word of God being read to the assembly of his children.

It’s not like we’re reading the Star Telegram up here or the Rangers box scores or Newsweek. It’s God-breathed Scripture. It’s God revealing himself and his will to his people. It deserves our highest honor and respect. It deserves for us to stand up and pay close attention to every syllable.

I’m not quite sure yet how to address this. I’m thinking it’s going to be difficult to say and communicate to our church family because our culture has apparantly taught us that it’s no big deal. I’ve tried waiting until everyone in the auditorium is still before I read, but as soon as I start, the activity begins again. I’ve been told that at Pipeline/Legacy they used to keep the doors closed whenever the Bible was being read. Entering and exiting and walking around during the reading of Scripture just wasn’t allowed. I remember those days at Pleasant Grove and Marble Falls. It wasn’t that long ago. What happened?

It has to be addressed. But I’m struggling with how.

I’ve shared before on this blog my experience at that 6-man state championship football game in Abilene back in ’96. I was walking up through the crowd to get to the press box just before the game began when an older gentleman grabbed me by the arm and said, “Freeze!” We were right in the middle of the national anthem. Everyone was still. Everyone had their hands on their hearts. Most were singing. And I was walking up through the middle of them with my Frito Pie and Dr Pepper!

I froze.

And when the Star Spangled Banner was over, I turned and thanked the gentleman for reminding me about manners and courtesy and respect.

I’m thinking about using that story in Sunday’s sermon to illustrate this concept of “Freeze” when the Bible is being read. Any other suggestions?

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I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be preaching this Sunday afternoon for the At The Cross Church of Christ in Mesquite. One of my very best friends, Dan Miller, one of the Four Horsemen, has gone full-bore into an effort to take the saving gospel of Jesus to low-income apartment complexes in Mesquite. Right now they have a group of about 50-60 who are meeting in a little strip center store front on Galloway. They worship God. They sing and they pray. And they preach and teach. And they feed the hungry. And they comfort the afflicted. And they minister to each other in the name of the Christ. I know the Highland Oaks, Mesquite, and New Hope congregations have supported this ministry. But it’s people like Dan and Debbie Miller and Bruce Archer and others who are right there in the middle of it, loving people and sharing with people, fixing cars, finding jobs, keeping kids, crying and laughing with these children of God who inspire me and encourage everyone they meet.

I’ve grown so much since first getting to know Dan at our first Mesquite Men’s Advance in 2001. Following that initial Four Horsemen breakfast at our home when we pledged to each other and to God that we would stop talking and start doing for the Kingdom, we took a trip to downtown Dallas with 400 $1 cheeseburgers from McDonald’s to feed the homeless.

We didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t know what we were getting into. We didn’t have a clue. But as soon as we pulled into that vacant parking lot between Dallas City Hall and the downtown library in our minivan with those 400 cheeseburgers, we knew we were in way over our heads. There must have been 600 people show up within five minutes! Somehow, by the grace of God, Jason got everybody to line up in an orderly fashion. (He was still a cop at this time) Dan had all the burgers inside the van and was handing them to me to, in turn, be handed to those we were feeding. It was wild and hectic and crazy and loud. I’d never seen that many people. And I knew we were running out of food. After about three or four minutes I noticed that Dan was handing me the burgers without looking at me. He had his head down. He was handing me the burgers, one at a time, in a very methodical, almost mechanical way. Like a robot almost. It was weird. I said, “Dan, what are you doing?” And he said, “I’m saying a prayer over every burger before I give it to you.”

He never ever loses sight of what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, and for whom he’s doing it. Never.

Dan is right there on the front lines of Christian ministry, making a difference in the lives of people who are hurting and down and destitute. He touches people every day with the love of Christ—people who, for the most part, don’t feel much love at all. They’re baptizing people. They’re growing the Kingdom. God is working mightily through them to change lives. And I admire Dan so much. He inspires me. His heart for God’s people is pure gold. And I can’t wait to be with them Sunday afternoon.

Peace,

Allan

The Word of God in the Bible

November 7, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

“All that is required is a firm resolve that the Bible should be allowed to speak for itself.” ~Karl Barth,

The Bible is not a book of man’s thoughts about God and the actions of God, but rather God’s intimate thoughts and actions about and regarding man. It is the Word of God revealing God to his world. It isn’t merely a compilation of truth or a set of statements, but a complex act in which God has spoken, God is speaking, and God will speak. Through his Word, God encounters man by the incarnation of his Son, by the confirmation of that incarnation by the prophets and the apostles in the Scriptures, and by the continuing testimony of that act by the Christian community. That is God’s Word.

“The Bible tells us not how we should talk with God, but what he says to us; not how we find the way to him, but how he has sought and found the way to us; not the right relation in which we must place ourselves in him, but the covenant which he has made with all who are Abraham’s spiritual children and which he has sealed once for all in Jesus Christ. It is this which is within the Bible. The Word of God is within the Bible.”

And that Word is living and powerful. It impacts every person who hears it and it changes every person who believes it. It transforms people. It is a field of divine activity, an instrument of holy communication. It shapes us and molds us into the image of the Son. If only we’ll let it.

Peace,

Allan

Eat This Book

November 6, 2007 / Allan / 1 Comment

“If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? A book must be like an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us.” ~George Steiner, 1970

Three of God’s greatest prophets — Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and John — were given the Word of God and told to eat it. Eat this scroll. Eugene Peterson writes about this spiritual way of ingesting Scripture in Eat This Book. His point, and the point that’s been made by God’s people and the Christian community for centuries, is that we don’t just learn or study or use the Scriptures; we take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love and cups of cold water and missions and encouragement and worship and justice and service in the name of our Father. We live and breathe and eat and sleep the Word of God. It’s the Word of God that transforms us into the image of the Christ. But it doesn’t transform us if we’re merely reading it.

We have to eat it.

Reading Scripture is not just an objective act of looking at the words and discerning their meaning. We can’t read the Bible the same way we read a novel or a cook book or a biography or a car manual. It’s different.

Scripture is a revelation. It’s our God revealing himself and his ways to us. He’s not telling us something as much as he’s showing himself to us. Revelation. The Holy Bible as authored by the creator of heaven and earth.

Peterson writes that, however broad our inspiration theology, “the Christian church has always held that God is somehow or other responsible for this book in a revelatory way, in contrast to a merely informational way. The authority of the Bible is immediately derived from the authorial presence of God. In other words, this is not an impersonal authority, an assemblage of facts or truths. This is not the bookish authority that we associate with legislation codified in a law library, or the factual authority of a textbook on mathematics. This is revelation, personally revealed—letting us in on something, telling us person to person what it means to live our lives as men and women created in the image of God.”

Eat this book.

I’m preaching this Sunday about the Word of God and its power to transform lives. I may be writing about that topic here for the rest of the week.

Peace,

Allan

Ears Thou Hast Dug

July 25, 2007 / Allan / 4 Comments

Thank you so much to John West and Lance Parrish! I’m finally back on my own computer (a new one. Drats!) in my own office! I’ve been unable to do with pictures what I’ve wanted to for the past week. But today’s the day. We’re back up and running with lots of catching up to do.

Remember a couple of weeks ago in a blog about Scripture I wrote about the practice of reading the Bible out loud. For a couple of years now I’ve been doing all of my Bible reading — my sermon and class prep, my morning devotional readings, all of it — out loud. And it’s completely changed the way I “hear” God and God’s people speaking to me. I hear the passion. I hear the conviction. I hear the joy. I hear the promises in a way I never did reading silently to myself.

Psalm 40:6 refers to “ears thou hast dug for me” in speaking to God about what he desires. The RSV translates it “thou hast given me an open ear;” it’s “my ears you have pierced” in the NIV; and the KJV version says “mine ears thou hast opened.” But the Hebrew phrase is literally “ears thou (God) hast dug for me.” Look it up. You probably have it in a footnote. David sees God swinging a pickaxe, digging ears in our granite blockheads so that we can hear, really hear, what he speaks to us. The primary organ for receiving God’s revelation is not the eye that sees but the ear that hears. Again, look it up.

Reading Scripture out loud intentionally focuses on the living Word — listening and responding to the voices of that great cloud of witnesses telling their stories, singing their songs, preaching their sermons, praying their prayers, asking their questions, and following their Lord.

I asked you to try it for two weeks. Read your Bible out loud. And then get back with me. Share with us how it’s changed your listening to God. Several of you said you would. Today’s the day. How’s it going? Give us some feedback on this. Just click the “comment” box at the top of the page and start writing.

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Today’s the last day for VBS at Legacy and we’re expecting our biggest crowd of the week. What a fantastic past three nights! Over 500 kids, teens, adults, teachers, and helpers each night. And what a blessing it’s been to me and my family. Last night was especially wonderful. The special effects of the fire and the rain with the projection and the screen behind and in front of the huge mountain set was fabulous. In fact, one of the great climaxes of the show last night was when God finally made it rain. The flashing lightning. The roaring thunder. And all the ladies and teens moving up and down the aisles throughout the auditorium, hiding behind giant rainclouds, and squirting water from concealed water guns up into the air. The misting effect on the crowd while watching Elijah get drenched on the stage was really a special touch.

But I got touched harder than everyone else.

When I first got “hit” I turned to Carrie-Anne and said, “Oh, that’s cool. It’s raining.” But then I quickly noticed I was getting repeatedly drilled in the left side of the head. Four or five times, right in the ear. I turned that way and saw two ladies with water guns, hiding behind their cloud, crouched down in a gunslinger pose, and just absolutely nailing me. And laughing. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything. And I couldn’t look directly at them because I was getting shot in the eyes. While the rest of the audience was getting misted once, I got two whole waterguns completely emptied in my head. I think I’ve got swimmer’s ear. I’m probably going to need an antibiotic. Regina and Teresa. You’ll get yours.

I found it interesting that we had to use Brock Paulk, the youth minister at the Heritage Church, to be our voice of God during the show. It’s interesting that with all the people at Legacy, Kipi apparantly looked around and said, “There’s no God here.” Is it bad that we had to outsource God? Brock’s a nice guy and all, but his God voice sounded like a weird mix between Santa Claus and Big Tex.

It was also interesting that as the angel in the Mount Horeb scene with Elijah, Shanna’s halo broke.

No further comment on that.

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There are 36 days left until football season. And 36 in the countdown is another of the best college football players ever. Steve Owens was a two-time All-America running back with the great Oklahoma Sooners teams of the late ’60s. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1969 and finished his college career as the #2 all-time rusher and the #1 TD scorer (56) in college football history. He made All Big-8 three times. He was the Big-8 Player of the Year twice. And at one point he ran for over a hundred yards in 17 straight games.

Owens went on to play for the Detroit Lions, becoming the first back in that team’s storied history to rush for a thousand yards. His NFL career was cut short by a knee injury after just five seasons, his lone Pro Bowl year coming in 1971.

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Finally — and this may be the best news of the day — the construction trailer has arrived and is parked and set up on the west side of the Legacy Church grounds. We’re finally underway with the building of our 1,500 seat worship center that’s been in the works for over five years. Suzanne has told us repeatedly for weeks and months now that when the trailer arrived she’d do a happy dance out on the church lawn.

And she did.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Bible (Page 9 of 10)

Eat The Word

The Delightful Word

"Freeze!"

The Word of God in the Bible

Eat This Book

Ears Thou Hast Dug

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