Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Enjoying the Bible

"Oh how I love your law!  It is my meditation all day." Psalm 119:92

Each person has a beginning point both for their worldview and thought-habits, and a continual inflow which influences both.  For me the beginning point has always been affirmation and "fitting in".  I don't know why, but I was so concerned with popularity growing up, under the impression that if I could attain it, I'd justify my existence.  I never did.  My worldview and thought habits were driven by this need for popularity and appreciation.  The inflow was media, sports, music, and just an overall secular culture that praises and glorifies people for their achievements, regardless of where said achievements fall on the "honorable" spectrum.  I wanted some of that.  
If you think about it, not stopping until you find the Truth, you also have a beginning point, from which you derive your worldview and thought habits, with inflow moving you forward in one direction or another.  Philosophers call it your ultimate reference point, and all people have one.  Thus it should go without saying that this means no one is entirely "neutral" -- ie. no one just picks and chooses what they think about.  Your worldview and thought life are a boat, your reference point is the anchor, and the inflow is the wind.  For some it is more money, for others it is more sex, and for others it is local pride (which of course is nonexistent in my city).  You can fill up a list with as many more options as Satan has ideas.

When Creator-God speaks His Word into peoples' lives, He bids them to come and repent of their beginning point for the sake of finding the beginning point for which they were created.  Jesus came preaching the Kingdom because the Kingdom is the ultimate purpose of God's creation in the first place.  The Kingdom is to be received in repentance, because those who will enter the Kingdom will first need a directional change.  To move toward Jesus' Kingdom requires moving away from any other "kingdom" which opposes His.  If one is honest (brutally honest), one finds that the kingdom in their own chest opposes Christ's, because it has the individual's glory as the chief end of all things. 
Jesus doesn't poo-poo on the human's need for glory -- He just changes the source to be sought for glory. "To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life" (Rom. 2:7).  But who's glory?  Not man's, for, "If I were seeking to please men, I wouldn't be a servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10).  Instead we're drawn to Jesus' rebuke of the religious people who couldn't believe in Him because they "receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God" (John 5:44).  Mark that -- they couldn't believe in Him.  Their desire for glory, affirmation, respect, etc. had in effect blinded them to their need for God's Christ.  Here we find the paradigm-shifting truth that man must repent of his need for glory from other men and himself, hungering for the glory of his Creator God alone.

The Psalmist spends 175 verses in chapter 119 showering God with praises because of His Law.  Here was a man who not only hungered for God's righteousness (cf. Matt. 5:6), but was satisfied by the feast which God's Word provided.  It appears that there had been a shift in his ultimate reference point (or perhaps grace had allowed his ultimate reference point to always be this way).  The thing about satisfaction is that, when satisfied, one will keep coming back for more, if it is offered.

To meditate all day on God's will, which is where the Psalter begins (see 1:2), Joshua's ministry begins (Josh. 1:8), and where Jesus begins fighting his desert temptation (Matt. 4:4), is not in contradiction with the need to go about your day and do your work.  It is a continual state of mind humbly practiced by those have tasted that the Lord is good, as they do their work.  The one meditating does not stop working, but he keeps working with a different reference point.

Unless your reference point changes, God's Word will be a burden.  And you will avoid it except for when you're at church.  When pressed, you'll respond, "I'm not a theologian".  And yet the Psalmist, who never brushes over his own sin (see Ps. 51, 58:3, 119:176), will continue to judge you by finding joy in the word of his Creator/Redeemer, while your heart remains divided.  Heed the challenge.  "His commandments are not burdensome" (1 Jn. 5:4b) if you love Him (5:4a).  That is, if you belong to Christ and are adopted into God's family as a sinner saved by grace -- the gracious life, death, resurrection, and continual intercession of Christ.  He didn't die to remove His disciples from the world.  He died to expose the faultiness of all that would raise itself up against the enjoyment of the presence of God forever.  And enjoying the presence of God forever begins with enjoying the Word of God presently.