As a counselor, I take the act of reading God’s Word seriously. Now, don’t take this to mean that I never have periods of time that I don’t delve into it on a regular basis. I’m not going into a guilt-ridden post here to try to make me or anyone reading this strive for more “devotional time”. However, I know how important it is to look at the Word for myself and see what God is saying to me through it. This certainly helps a great deal in sharing God’s Truth with others. The problem is, when I look at myself to see how the Truth I know is being manifested in my behaviors and feelings, it is simply not there at times. One of the main issues is that the Truth gets stuck in my head and doesn’t make its way down to my heart. In other words, to put it more bluntly…I often don’t truly believe the facts that I know. If I don’t believe something, even if I know in my head that it is true, I will not live as if it is true. Then that Truth is really of no value to me whatsoever.
When I think back to my time in school, from Kindergarten on up, I can recall many times that I studied for exams that I really didn’t see much need in holding onto the information after I was done taking the test. I only memorized and understood the information that was going to be on the test enough to do well on the test at the time. Yeah, there were times that I knew the information would be important for me to carry over to another class or my future as an accountant and counselor, but there were many times that I just didn’t see information for certain tests as applicable to me and my present or future. The problem was certainly not with the teachers that took the time to teach me. You could say I just didn’t treasure some of the things I was taught.
I sometimes treat the Bible the same as I did some of what I learned in school. God’s Word is Truth. That means when I read something from His Word, what I read ARE facts, but The Word is not just cool inspirational stories and rules. Jesus Christ referred to Himself as the Truth, so Truth has a lot to do with a warm, loving, real relationship, not just cold hard facts to know. Having this kind of relationship with God is an awesome thing, therefore, God’s Truth is a treasure.
In Ephesians 2:8, which is part of the Scripture passage from which I got the title for this blog, Paul says that we are saved through faith. In looking up the meaning of the original Greek word used here, I found these definitions were offered (among others) to describe what Paul was getting at when he was talking about faith: belief in the truth, reality, and firm persuasion. Therefore, faith definitely has something to do with knowing the truth and believing it. I must be firmly persuaded that what God says is true…to the point that it is reality for me. That means I live it. Here’s where I get tripped up again, many times. I can coldly go about trying to mimic what I read in the Bible (doing good works, staying away from sins, trying not to repeat the mistakes of people in the Bible, etc.) But living by Grace through Faith requires me to live in the Truth with RELATIONSHIP being the foundation. That’s what causes us to treasure it.
When I read Paul’s words “pray without ceasing” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, I think back to what I learned from the author, Henri Nouwen, when he asserted that praying like this means living in reality instead of illusion (living according to the lies that Satan wants us to believe about ourselves, God, and others). Praying means I am interacted with God through Christ…talking to Him as if He is really there listening because He IS really there listening, then deliberately listening for Him, watching for Him, including Him in big and little things that I am going through, asking Him questions, getting angry with Him, accepting His discipline, and taking His Truth and applying it in order to experience more of Him. Only He can validate His Truth for me by taking it from my head to my heart, and this happens through life experiences. I experience Him as I interact with Him by living as if what He says is actually true. I have to push myself to get away from the head knowledge trap.
Perhaps the easiest way to begin to attack this issue is to do what Paul did with the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul said, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Paul refused to use all the knowledge and the ability to speak eloquently. He made a conscience decision to live out the Truth by not relying on his own abilities and knowledge, but to rely solely on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He goes on to say that he did this “in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling”. This was not comfortable for Paul. He put himself in a position where God had to come through for him and for the people he was speaking to. He put himself in a position where he actively trusted God. In other words, He put action to his faith.
I’ve done this before, but how easily I can forget what it was like by getting complacent. Years ago when anxiety and panic attacks ruled my life, I came to a point in which I chose to face my fears. Through the experiences that followed, my faith grew tremendously. I experienced hope and joy, and it was great. Now it’s time to press forward once again…to quit treating my experience back then as if it was a great learning experience and nothing more. Although I’ve often treated it as such, it was not just a one time event in my life that led to my faith being full-grown. When I think about my wife, I don’t just think about the wedding day and nothing more. There have been so many awesome moments since then. The wedding day was only the beginning. Likewise, God has so much more He is wanting to experience with me…many more awesome moments…maybe even some better than what I have experienced thus far.