Irresistible Invitation by Maxie Dunham - Day 6
Irresistible Invitation
Day 6: A Roadmap For the Journey
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path (Ps. 119:105).
On Day 6, Maxie Dunham, author of these devotions, challenges us to rethink our view of the Bible - our Holy Scripture, our Roadmap for the Journey.
What is your view of the Bible? Some people find it intimidating, containing an outdated list of dos and don'ts for people who "lived so long ago that nothing from their lives could actually speak to us today."
"Not so!" says Maxie - and I along with him. The Bible is living and active, it is the inspired Word of God; it is one more way that God reaches out to us and is in relationship with us. These words are from the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever - therefore it is always relevant and speaks to us across century after century after century.
Maxie reminds us that humans out of their human experience wrote the Bible. "It is an account of people who came to know God and were known by God; who came to know others and to be known by others. It's a story about people who learned how to live a life of relationships, then shared their experience with others."
In Psalm 139 the psalmist says: "O Lord, you have searched me and you know me." God knows each one of us deeply - and at times, that can be a frightening thought. As Maxie wrote: "It's unnerving to sense that God knows everything about us, including our desires, our innermost feelings, our fears, our shortcomings, all of it. It can be equally as scary to be truly known by fellow humans. So we play hide-and-go-seek in our relationships, stretching our imaginations for fresh ways to remain hidden." But the Bible has a way of getting at our hearts, pushing us to get beyond our fears.
Seeking Vs. Trusting
Maxie writes about a particularly dry time in his life, when his prayers seemed dull and reading the Bible was difficult. There didn't seem to be any apparent reason for this - it was just a dry time in his life. One day he came across a passage from Julian of Norwich's Showings:
"And this vision taught me to understand that the soul's constant search
pleases God greatly. ... Seeking with faith, hope and love pleases our
Lord, and finding pleases the soul and fills it full of joy. And so I was
taught to understand that seeking is as good as contemplating... It is
God's will that we seek on until we see him, for it is through this that he
will show himself to us, of his special grace, when it is his will."
From this passage, Maxie found that while he had been seeking the Lord, he had not been trusting the Lord. "Part of understanding the Bible for the gift that it is, then, involves reading it with trust and faith, believing that it can - and will - change our lives. Every time we read it, it offers a revelation and an encounter with the living God." Think about that for a moment. Pick up the Bible any time of day or night and have an encounter with the living God. Maxie reminds us that there are many gods in our lives, but only one Living God. In our lives, we serve gods of wealth, materialism, money, greed. "But the Bible says, 'What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?' (Mark
We worship the god of sex and pleasure, but the Bible says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" (1 Cor. 6:19). We are tempted to serve the god of power, prestige, and worldly influence. But the Bible says, "But many who are first will be last, and the last first" (Mark
Maxie reminds us that that Bible, along with offering revelation and a personal encounter with God, also is in invitation to life. And it is gospel, literally translated, it is "good news." The invitation to life is in found in the Old and New Testaments. The last verse of Psalm 23 says it
well: "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." The invitation is personal, to you - to me. And in the New Testament, it is personally delivered by Jesus Christ.
But Maxie also gives us a strong message: "When we read these stories, no matter how long ago they were actually penned, we can find direction and guidance for our everyday lives. A word of caution about guidance, however, and a reminder that guidance in the Christian life is a matter of grave concern and a place where discipline is sorely needed."
There are tragic examples of people who have distorted the guidance offered in the Bible. Remember Jim Jones and the
money praying extra hard for God's guidance to help them accumulate money and wealth. There are many examples where we distort what we read in the Bible, sometimes very innocently and sometimes very painfully.
Maxie points out two clear facts about the guidance of the Bible. "One, Scripture not only promises guidance; it assumes the fact of guidance throughout its pages. And two, Jesus also promised guidance through the gift of the Spirit." (see John 16:12-15) The central source of God's guidance for us is through the Holy Scriptures of the Bible. "If God's wisdom and guidance are going to be ours in an ongoing way, if guidance is not to be a hit-or-miss, frantic seeking of God's will in particular situations, then we must immerse ourselves in the Scriptures. When we are familiar with God's Word through daily reading, meditation, and study, we
will seldom flounder for want of guidance."
And if we have God's wisdom and guidance in our lives, we will be confident about the will of God, walking steady on God's path, responding with certainty to that inward nudging. In fact, the assurance that we need to act on those nudges is often confirmed by and through the Word of God. Through the study of Scripture, we can have that source of wisdom and guidance that James says can be ours by faith.
The Heart of the Matter:
- How does the Bible fit into your walk with God?
- What stands in the way of you having a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Scriptures? How could that challenge be overcome?
- How do you think God could use the Bible to help guide, encourage, and esteem you?
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