“Sing oil in my lamp,” said Amelia at lunch today. She’s been watching episodes on YouTube of Psalty’s Little Praisers, videos her dad watched as a child. From her seat beside me, I could hear her mumbling her precious rendition of Say To The Lord I Love You while she waited for her pizza. It wouldn’t take long for the tunes and lyrics to stick in your head, but I remember these from almost three decades ago. Many of the songs are straight from scripture.
Hiding God’s word in our hearts is never as complicated as we try to make it. I’m listening to a free online Bible reading plan from The Gospel Coalition simply entitled Read The Bible. This particular resource uses the M’Cheyne plan which allows for reading through the Old Testament in one year and the New Testament twice. It takes roughly eighteen minutes daily.
Which portion of your commute could you allot to daily Bible reading? I ask because recently, as I drove across town to help with the night shift with Amelia’s baby brother, Ezra, while their mom rested a bit and recovered from her delivery, I realized a week in that the drive was exactly the time I should have been listening. I often had trouble keeping my eyes opened for the duration once the baby was asleep, or the volume of an unfamiliar voice wakened the sleeping infant. But I needed my daily bread now more than ever!
I was reminded again this past Sunday during the guest pastor’s sermon at my church just how rewarding it is for me to be in God’s word daily. It is the abiding that Jesus spoke of in John 15 when He said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” The intimate connection- His life flowing into mine, Spirit to spirit- makes way for good fruit. The guest pastor preached the first five verses from II Peter 1, which had been on my mind as I studied and prepared to teach youth Bible study the week before. I was prepared to receive his teaching and I thanked God that the lesson I had shared was being confirmed for the teenagers who heard my lesson.
“But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.””
John 5:17 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.5.17.NLT
““I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener.
He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.”
John 15:1-2 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.15.1-2.NLT
A severed branch, a shriveled branch, a strangled branch cannot sustain growth, much less bear fruit.
“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.
For apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:4-5 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.15.4-5.NLT
We are surrounded by, inundated with, ideas daily that fly in the face of Truth. If we would not be misled, we must “study to show ourselves approved, workers who need not be ashamed, correctly handling the word of truth.” (II Timothy 2:15) Only when we are standing firm in the knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, as Peter put it, can we counter evil and deception in the world. Only when we are abiding daily in Christ, steeped in His Word, can we recognize where God is working and be part of what He’s doing there. Only when we’re prepared to give a reason for the hope we have can we step into teachable moments, relying on God’s Spirit in us to provide the right words at the right time.
“The longer Paul waited in Athens for Silas and Timothy, the angrier he got—all those idols! The city was a junkyard of idols.
He discussed it with the Jews and other like-minded people at their meeting place. And every day he went out on the streets and talked with anyone who happened along.
He got to know some of the Epicurean and Stoic intellectuals pretty well through these conversations.
Some of them dismissed him with sarcasm: “What a moron!” But others, listening to him go on about Jesus and the resurrection, were intrigued:
“That’s a new slant on the gods. Tell us more.”
These people got together and asked him to make a public presentation over at the Areopagus, where things were a little quieter.
They said, “This is a new one on us. We’ve never heard anything quite like it. Where did you come up with this anyway? Explain it so we can understand.”
Downtown Athens was a great place for gossip. There were always people hanging around, natives and tourists alike, waiting for the latest tidbit on most anything.
So Paul took his stand in the open space at the Areopagus and laid it out for them.
“It is plain to see that you Athenians take your religion seriously.
When I arrived here the other day, I was fascinated with all the shrines I came across.
And then I found one inscribed, to the god nobody knows.
I’m here to introduce you to this God so you can worship intelligently, know who you’re dealing with.
“The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself.
He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him.
Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him.
He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us.
He’s not remote; he’s near.
We live and move in him, can’t get away from him!
One of your poets said it well: ‘We’re the God-created.’
Well, if we are the God-created, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to think we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?
“God overlooks it as long as you don’t know any better—but that time is past.
The unknown is now known, and he’s calling for a radical life-change.
He has set a day when the entire human race will be judged and everything set right. And he has already appointed the judge, confirming him before everyone by raising him from the dead.”
At the phrase “raising him from the dead,” the listeners split: Some laughed at him and walked off making jokes; others said, “Let’s do this again. We want to hear more.”
But that was it for the day, and Paul left.
There were still others, it turned out, who were convinced then and there, and stuck with Paul—among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris.”
Acts 17:16-34 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/act.17.16-34.MSG
Paul, impatient with waiting and hard pressed to find anyone he could talk to intelligently about Jesus, preached this powerful sermon on a hill outside Athens. Among the crowd that day, we read that Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus and a woman named Demaris, along with a few others believed in Jesus. A handful of converts picked up along the way to bigger things? Hardly. God, who chose Paul and showed him what he must suffer for the name of Jesus, worked in Paul’s waiting to add to His kingdom. Dionysius, Demaris, and the unnamed others names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life because nothing is inconsequential in God’s economy.
“If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor:
Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.
Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top.
Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead.
Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage.
Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.
He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.
Not at all.
When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!
Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process.
He didn’t claim special privileges.
Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.
What I’m getting at, friends, is that you should simply keep on doing what you’ve done from the beginning.
When I was living among you, you lived in responsive obedience.
Now that I’m separated from you, keep it up.
Better yet, redouble your efforts.
Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God.
That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.
Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed!
Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society.
Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God.
Carry the light-giving Message into the night so I’ll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns.”
Philippians 2:1-16 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/php.2.1-16.MSG
No more excuses. Read the Bible. Read it today and tomorrow and the next day, and when you’ve finished it, start again. You’ll never get to the end of it. It is your life. He is your daily bread.
““I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.”
Isaiah 55:8-11 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/isa.55.8-11.MSG
“And that’s about it, friends.
Be cheerful.
Keep things in good repair.
Keep your spirits up.
Think in harmony.
Be agreeable.
Do all that, and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure.
Greet one another with a holy embrace.
All the brothers and sisters here say hello.
The amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit, be with all of you.”
2 Corinthians 13:11-14 MSG
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