God Speaks Life

I think one of the signs you're growing as a Christian is that your duties become your joys. You have to read the Bible, but, hey we get to read the Bible! We have to go to church, but guess what, it's Sunday, we get to go to church today! We have to get baptised, but yes! I get to be baptized, and identify with Christ and His people.

Duties slowly become joys. I'll be honest, i'm never excited when my alarm goes off at 515 four or five days a week. But marrying a teacher means early mornings and long days, and if i don't start in the Word, i'll never get there. So i get up, stumble to the coffee machine, locate my Bible, and the Valley of Vision, and off i go. I have to get up before dawn and read the Bible, but i get to wake up before dawn and read the Bible. A Christian duty becomes a delightful joy. The back yard is dark, the house is quiet, and God is speaking.

And when God speaks; life!

God speaks in Genesis 1, and there's life. God speaks and there are trees, and fruit, and seas teeming with fish, and Adam and Eve. And it's good. try it for yourself, try speaking out and creating life. I just did, it didn't work. But God speaks, and it does! Isaiah tells us that God's Word is like rain falling to the ground. It waters the crops and they grow. Life!

In Luke 7:11-17 Jesus is walking to Nain, and He passes a funeral procession. The boy is dead, the mother is wailing, the Nain City Nuggets Major League Mourning team are turning in an all-pro performance. But God is about to speak. 'Young man, i say to you, arise.' And he does. Because God spoke, and there was life. The mother rejoiced, the Nuggets trudged off the field, last minute winner- probably offside.

(As an aside, this is another one in the eye for people who tell us that 'Jesus never claimed to be God.' Jesus hardly did any else but claim He was God.)

And onto 2 Corinthians 4:4-6. What happened when we got saved? God turned the light on and we saw Christ. We saw Him, not as a 'good teacher,' not as an irrelevance, but as God Himself. The lights came on, and we worshiped. Just like 'in the beginning.' We see the glory of God in Christ. As we read the Gospel, the letters, the prophets, the history, we see God's glory in Christ.

We have to, and we get to. It's a duty and a joy. We have to because in the cultural wasteland of post Christian America, it's the only we to survive. We get to, because we meet a loving God, who would feed us with the finest of wheat, and honey from the rock.