BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

The Apostle Peter called The WORD of God “a more sure word” (2 Peter 1:19). More sure than what? Well, to begin with, Peter had seen his share of signs and wonders. The greatest, perhaps, was when he accompanied Jesus, along with James and John, to a mountain where they actually heard the audible voice of God, and watched as Jesus spoke face-to-face with Moses and Elijah. Peter was so impressed that he offered to build tents for everyone and camp there for a while (Matthew 17:4). But in spite of all the glorious manifestations of God that he had seen and heard, Peter later had this to say: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables...but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For [Jesus] received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed" (2 Peter 1:16-19). Now there is no denying that physical manifestations of God’s presence and power can be spectacular to our natural senses, but even so, they still have a sense of uncertainty about them. In the first place, miracles don’t happen every day. They are an act of God’s will, not ours. So, we shouldn’t try to live from miracle to miracle. God never intended it to be that way. He never promised a daily dose of visions, dreams, prophecies and miracles for us to live by. What God did provide, however, was a book full of living promises. He sent His WORD. He gave us a book overflowing with life. He gave us a book overflowing with Himself. If you think about it, the Bible is not a book about someone. It is Someone. It is literally God talking to each one of us—which takes us back to why Peter called The WORD of God a more sure word. In 2 Peter 1:19, he went on to say, “Ye do well that ye take heed [to the written Word], as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” In other words, you may not wake up and hear the audible voice of God every morning, but you do have His WORD. You have His promises, His revelation, His wisdom—and it’s all as sure as the sun rising every day. So live by it. Yes, miracles are wonderful. But God’s plan is for us to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). He expects us to live each day by faith in His WORD, not by the signs and wonders we might see along the way. May I Have That in Writing? Think for just a moment about one of the great Old Testament examples we have of walking by faith and not by sight—Abraham. When God called Abraham out of his homeland, telling him to leave his family and go to a new land, there was no written WORD of God. There wasn’t even an Old Covenant. All Abraham had to go on was a spoken promise. “Get thee out of thy country,” God had told him. “And I will make of thee a great nation” (Genesis 12:1-2). At the time, Abram was 75 years old and married to a barren woman. Yet, he took God at His WORD and left his family and homeland behind. When Abram finally arrived in Canaan, God appeared to him and said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Genesis 12:7). Then, in Genesis 13, God told him, “All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth...” (verses 15-16). The point is, all along the way, God kept speaking the promise and speaking the promise. But in Genesis 15:2, after God had appeared to him in a vision, Abram asked God, “What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?” At this point, Abram had given in to the circumstances. He was 86, and day after day all he had been seeing was a barren wife and no child. He complained even more by saying, “Behold, to me thou hast given no seed” (verse 3). The truth was, God had given Abram seed. He just didn’t realize it. From the very beginning God had given him His WORD—and the living WORD of God is seed (Mark 4). 20 : BVOV

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