Monday, February 6, 2012

WATERSHEDS OF LIFE

Step into the Garden

If your word had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

There are two Watersheds from which we are nourished, and by which we derive the “Word of God.” The first is God himself, expressed in the Person of his Son, Jesus. He, and he alone, is the Logos, The Word. It is through him, and by him that all other representations of the “Word” are credentialed. The second are the thoughts contained in the Scriptures that reveal the nature and pleasure of God.

As a young seminary student, I was taught that once the canon of Scripture was complete, that God no longer revealed himself on an individual basis, to humankind. All we need to know about God was to be found in the Bible. I have discovered, however, that such thinking is terribly myopic. The Bible, the canon of Scripture, is not an intermediary between you and Jesus. It does not serve the purpose of a priest. You may now come boldy into the presence of living God yourself. You may speak to him and interact with him on a person to Person basis. You do not need to have a Bible in your hand to connect with God.

Jesus, The Word, has made this possible.

This isn’t to relegate the written word to irrelevance. Far from it. God has indeed revealed himself in both the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament. But it does put it in perspective. Jesus, The Word, becomes the Lens through which all else is to be viewed and understood. God has revealed himself in the written word and to that extent, it is . . .

“. . . living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” – Heb 4:12

Even so, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit do not live merely within the sacred page. Jesus, The Word, is alive and dynamic at this very moment, and ready to be engaged within a person to Person relationship – more, not less than we might engage another human in soul to soul relationship. And as such, Jesus, The Word, continues to reveal himself and the Father, in concert with, but outside the purview of the written Word, on a heartbeat to heartbeat, indescribably intimate basis.

This inter-connectivity with God and his Son, through the Spirit is absolutely essential to successful living and indeed – to eternal life. This is why the psalmist said, If your word had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. And the word, delight is wonderfully appropriate. Such intra-personal relationship with the Creator produces a vitality of life in human experience that in itself, is a source a nourishment.

“Intra-personal” means communication with one’s self. That is not what is meant here. What is meant is communication that takes place within one’s self, as in the apostle Paul’s notion that His Spirit bears witness with our spirit . . . While the communication takes place within the individual, it is nonetheless, communication between two real persons, yourself and God who dwells within you in the Person of his Spirit. It is, therefore, reciprocal. It feeds on itself and you and I are the beneficiaries of its blessing. It is intimacy with Jesus that words simply cannot adequately express.

It is, indeed, delight beyond imagination.

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