The Word of God

I was listening to a Mike Winger video yesterday where he was addressing a false teaching. The way he did it was to read the statements that the teacher made, then read the Bible where the teacher misused the scripture to put everything back into perspective. During this video, he was about to read a verse from the Bible but before he read it he said, ” For some of you, I just want to mention…and forgive me because this might sound mean, I don’t mean it that way. For some of you the most boring parts of this video are when I actually take you to scripture and we read it…and I want to tell you, that’s part of the problem. (nervous laugh). The patience of learning scripture, just wanting to pull an application out of it, but not really wanting to understand it…..”
This statement stuck out to me because of a stirring I’ve been having in my own heart about the vital importance of knowing the word. Let me make a few factual statements before I begin to open up this topic. I am just like every other person on this planet…. I also have to deliberately make time to sit down with my Bible and read…and no, it isn’t always easy to do…. I fail a lot…. I’m not nearly as disciplined as I would like to be…. so every last thing I write on this blog here is about me first…and everyone else second because the point of me writing this is to bring myself in better line with the word and my walk with God.

Mike Winger’s video was addressing one of the most successful false teachers leading the believers today. Yep, the believers and the reason they are led and not suspicious of the doctrine is because they have no basis to compare what is being taught by this man to the believer having never read the bible for themselves and spending little time in prayer. Honestly, when I was listening to Mike Wingers video, and he read the statements by this teacher, they sounded ok…they weren’t obvious deviations from truth….I could see how someone who had no basis to compare the doctrine to might be lead astray by it. I even wondered if the teacher/preacher himself was aware of how off his teachings were. The thing is, this teacher uses scripture, he just dislodges it from its true intentions and assigns new intentions to it that supports his beliefs. In order to see the error, you would need to understand the nature of God, his doctrine and his plans for your life, found in the word. So this teacher’s false doctrine is insidious because it leads those who have no sound doctrine astray. It does this because these followers have not gotten the word for themselves…. and having never read it, they have never sought God to teach them the word in truth….and because they have never read the word, they also don’t know the very nature of God or what his plans are for us, so this false teacher can take the very doctrine they know they should study for themselves, but have willingly assigned the task to other people and attribute his false meanings to the word, thus deceive these believers.

All of this drove home even more the importance of having the Bible written on our heart…. the whole bible. The way to make that happen is for each one of us to make reading the word a priority and start reading it for ourselves. 2 points here, one…. We are supposed to live this life laying up for ourselves treasures in heaven… like the life after this one is more important than this life…. and to do this we can not neglect the things of God… or his word. I know people who will spend more time reading up on their vacation destinations than they do on the word that leads them into eternity, clearly they are still more invested in this life. I know it isn’t easy, I fail A LOT…but I keep trying. The second point is we have to read the word for ourselves, not listen to a preacher… or teacher… (both are good in addition to personal study) or a meme on social media… , but actually sit down and prayerfully read the word for ourselves with the intention of understanding it. It can be a single verse that brought forth a new understanding that took you deeper into knowing the Lord Jesus.

That’s the whole point… we need to know the word to know Jesus. If you say you love Jesus but never spend time reading the word to understand the very nature of our Lord and Savior, do you really love him? Pay attention to these verses in the Bible… they show us who Jesus is.

John 1:1-5
 ¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
² The same was in the beginning with God.
³ All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
⁴ In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
⁵ And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Revelation 19:13
¹³ And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

Jesus is the Word of God… and in Genesis you see God create everything by speaking it into existence using his Word.

Hosea 4:6
⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

The Bible is Gods plan for man, it’s the way God wants his children to live their life. Each story and lesson revels the very nature of God and shows us who Jesus is while giving us promises we can cling to and believe in. The word shows us how to live a victorious life and how to solve every single problem we will ever encounter…. it gives us relationship advice and parenting advice… it tells us how to deal with our elders… literally everything we need is found there…. and yet, many Christians spend little to no time invested in learning the word. They want the victory, but not the lesson that goes with it.

The time is coming when the only people who will be able to spot the truth are those who have the word of God (from reading it themselves) written on their hearts, guiding them.

It is VITAL to spend the time now getting the word in your heart…before the storm hits, before the lying spirit comes to confuse you, before your faith is put to the test….. you want to build Bible muscle Memory…. so you instantly react to false doctrine with the truth of the word bubbling up inside of you shining the light of truth all over it.

The time to get the light of the word of God deep inside of you is before the darkness comes. When the darkness does come, and you are ready having learned the word, your light will drive out the darkness INSTANTLY. It won’t have a chance to take root at all… or to corrupt the truth even in subtle ways…it will meet with a whole bunch of My Lord THE WORD OF GOD REBUKES THIS LIE….the very second it shows itself.