2nd Imaginary Email Conversation with my Christian Friend
Hi, again,
I hope this letter finds you and your snow blower doing well. I agree with you – white Christmas and green New Years. But the first of January is only the sign that there are still three months of complaining about Michigan.
I'm glad you didn't lose your job. These are times when panic is the popular response and greediness grows like a weed. Protect your heart. Don't forget that your friend that did lose his job needs more than a word of encouragement, he may need help. Look at James 2:14-26. I was at a meeting yesterday where that text was the devotion we started with. It has a lot to say to us.
That brings me to the topic of this week's letter. I thank you for being honest with me about your current Bible habits. That's got to change my friend!
Do you remember when you first met Jesus? I'll never forget when I saw you the Sunday after you read the whole Bible in a weekend. You looked like you had just come from an ancient Egyptian torture chamber! You couldn't tell me anything about what you had read. I think you invented the term "red-eye" that weekend.
We worked through taking the Bible in healthy pieces and letting God apply them to your life. You learned how to not use the Bible as a weapon to prove a point, and how it's best not to overlook things because you don't like what they say. I remember you being amazed at the fact that I don't understand all of it, after all I'm a pastor shouldn't I know everything about the Bible? It was a hard lesson for you that we can trust and live what we do understand and respectfully be in awe of what we don't understand…yet. And we all have things we don't understand.
You have gone through times when your interaction with the Word of God was personal and intimate, and times when it was almost surgical in its soul application. You went through times when you felt you had to read it out of guilt, times when you wanted to read it so you could feed your own pride of knowing something someone else didn't, and you had times of real growth through huge trials that the Bible was a real help.
So here's my question, "why'd you let it become so distant from you?" "Why did you think that you could be close to God and far from His Word?"
In my last letter we talked about prayer. This one is going to call you to action also. Get back in the Word! Change some priorities and let God speak to you through His love letter. You know that will impact how you handle the current problem you're having with your family. Get back in the Word and let it get in you!
I know you enough to know you're thinking about some News Year's resolutions (like the one we both made to meet at the gym every morning at 5:00 am… If I remember right we clocked a total of 3 times before we got "to busy"). I'm not talking about a goal or personal challenge that involves tomorrow.
Right now- get into the Word. Right now make that a topic of prayer and a step of obedience. If you need help getting started again, start with one of the Gospels. Go slow. Log your challenges and discoveries in a notebook. Talk with some of your friends at church about what you're reading. Let the Bible be a topic of conversation and a priority of your life.
You cannot stay close to God by living on what you hear from the Bible on Sunday morning. Get it off the table and into your life.
I'm only saying that because I long to see the joy of being close to God on your face again and the fruit of His being close to you in your words.
Oh, by the way… that excuse you just thought of – ya, that's lame and you know it (do I know you or what?)!
Looking Forward to Seeing You Sunday,
Friend Dave
No comments:
Post a Comment