I’m so grateful for God’s Word! Nothing else can do what it can. It brings revelation and insight from God. It shows us what belongs to us, as believers. When we keep it in front of our eyes, in our ears and in our heart, miracles happen. Faith comes and an explosion of clarity and power goes off on the inside of us that enables us to do what God says and receive the blessings that are ours in Christ.
God’s Word also simplifies our lives. You’d be surprised how many questions get answered and how many temptations you avoid just by making the one decision that you’re going to listen to and obey God’s Word.
Once you’ve made that decision you don’t have to waste time trying to figure out, for example, when you’re tempted to tell a “little white lie” whether it would be to your advantage. You’ve already settled the issue. Lying is not an option for you because it’s contrary to the Word of God. (See Exodus 20:16.)
“But Gloria, isn’t that being legalistic?”
No! It’s being smart.
Think about it. If you tell a lie you have to worry about getting found out. You have to live in fear that someone will discover the truth and you’ll wind up being embarrassed, or worse. That’s a miserable way to live. It’s how people in the world do things. They connive and sin, thinking they’re doing themselves a favor. But then their sin backfires on them and they wind up paying a deadly price for it because, as Romans 6:23 says, “the wages of sin is death.”
That’s not what God wants for us. He wants us to enjoy “the gift of God [which] is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (verse 23). The word life there is the Greek word zoe. It refers to “the God kind of life.”
What is the God kind of life? It’s not just going to heaven in the sweet by-and-by. It’s living like God does in the rugged here and now and enjoying “days of heaven on earth” (Deuteronomy 11:21).
God’s Word teaches us how to live like God does! It renews our minds so that instead of continuing to think carnally (or “like meatheads” as Ken says), we learn to think and operate like God does. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
BVOV : 29
