Check-Lists And Bullet-Points.
I've been thinking about freedom lately. What it means to live a life of liberty. Not having to watch my back. Not wondering if the scales are tipping one direction, about to drop me off.
I've also been thinking about the Bible. What is its purpose in our lives? I imagine its here for our benefit - but what is that? Should something happen in our daily(-esque) reading of the Bible? What?
Here's my writings, from my notebook, from this morning:
I've been thinking lately about the amazing, overwhelming amount of freedom that we have in Christ. This morning, as I was thinking about relationships and how best to "do them" (discernment, guidance, etc.) I wondered whether the Bible was ever meant to be a step-by-step "rulebook" or even a concise "guidebook" or if, in reality, God gives us broad statements like "love" and then lets us work out the details by trusting Him, listening to Him, walking with Him, and simply living. In this way, maybe the Bible is meant to introduce us to the person who will speak to us rather than the one who has already spoke all, definitively, for good.
My friend Brad shared a verse with me today, Hebrews 3:15, that I think speaks to this:
// ...[T]oday, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. //
To those of us who have heard his voice, who have laid aside our causes for rebellion, there now exists a loving call to do, as Paul admonishes in Romans, what is God's good, pleasing, and perfect will.
That will is being revealed to us daily - if we would search for it in Scripture and listen to the Spirit who, even now, is speaking.
May the Lord give you wisdom and discernment as you seek to know his will for your life.
1 comment:
God's will, very much God's vision. The way that I have come to percieve God's will is that He does have one for us, but the same for all of us. I think His will is His desire for all to come back into communion with God and come into a restorative process. I think His will or His vision is the restoration of His people and the fulfillment of His Kingdom which is full of these restored people. In this I think the Bible is full of restoration stories from beginning to end and this gives me hope. If God can restore Saul the Christian killer and give him a new name Paul (the guy who God worked through to write a major portion of the New Testament) then there is hope for all. In this, I do not think God has an individual will for each of us but a way to live with the giftings He has given us that points others and ourselves back to His vision of a restored, holy and pure Kingdom.
My thought is that God's will has already been established and we sometimes look for individual "wills" that are not there. In my own life I am seeking and testing out this idea that God's will has already been established and that it is universal to His people. Simply I think God wants us to do what we can with what we have that points towards his restorative mercy and justice.
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