"I will forgive" and I will Saturate
A wise person once said,
God is not a character in my story,
I am a character in God's story.
This I will,
"I will saturate my self in all of the Bible
and let its story become my story"
is at the heart of Belonging House International.
And there are several things
that we need to keep in mind.
You have probably noticed that
the Bible is not the first I will.
Faith in Jesus is first.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit and surrendering to God is second.
The experience of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist is third.
Being in relationship with others in fourth.
And then
we talk about the Bible.
We are an incarnational community.
We are not a bible only community.
Our faith is Biblical and scriptural
but it is also sacramental and supernatural.
And in the witness of scripture
the Bible is the record of encounters with God.
People in the Bible met God
and then they wrote it down.
There is an old,
and probably apocryphal story
of two men in a train car
sharing a compartment.
One man is a bishop,
and he takes out his daily office book
to say morning prayer.
The other man
is a Baptist traveling salesman.
The Baptist notices the Bishop
saying his morning office,
and he comments.
"Ah, I see you are reading from the Bible.
My church is founded on the Bible."
The Bishop,
without looking up from his prayerbook,
commented:
"My church wrote it."
The Book of Common prayer
teaches us
Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy Scriptures
to be written for our learning:
Grant us so to hear them,
read,
mark,
learn,
and inwardly digest them,
that we may embrace
and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
We are to
hear
read
mark
learn
and inwardly digest the Scripture.
Holy Scripture
is the tuning fork
of our
spiritual experience.
I am grateful that more than one person has said to me
that when they read my books
they hear
"Bible, Bible, Bible."
You cannot get enough Bible.
But the Bible is not a rule book
or a book of precepts that we have to follow.
The Bible is the manual
on how to be in relationship with God.
And it is also the guide
on how your
spiritual life
is to be lived.
When you get into the Bible
you start to hear how God speaks
and then you can recognize
God's voice
in the rest of your life.
There is a great book
called "What's Wrong with Protestant Theology."
The basic idea is this,
Protestants
get an idea
and then they look for a prooftext,
a verse to back up that idea or experience,
and make a doctrine out of it.
That is the making of crazy.
It will get you into trouble.
The most dangerous part of this,
is you can have a secular humanist worldview
and think you are Christian.
This is world's way of thinking.
We want to approach the Bible differently.
We want to learn the whole story.
We want to come into agreement in our lives
with this story
and let it shape us.
And when we have a Biblically shaped life,
we will eventually have a Christlike life.
Because the Bible points to Jesus
and Jesus is the Word made flesh.
It's not about dead letters on the page.
It's about a living God
and the record of how he deals with people.
And here is a really important thing:
The Author of the Bible
is not going to contradict himself.
God is not going to tell you to do something
that the Bible condemns.
God is consistent.
At the same time
this book is living.
And those who learn to really live with God
and live in the Bible
discover,
through process,
fullness of life.
God wants to give you life to the full.
And so
every day
we come back to the Bible.
The healthiest approach to the Bible
is through the lectionary.
We as a community use the daily
mass lectionary used by the Roman Catholic Church.
We chose this for practical reasons,
You can find these readings in many places online
and the readings are consistent.
You are going to hear the gospels several times in a year
and you are going to hear about 70% of the scripture
annually.
On Sundays you will hear almost the whole Bible
in three years.
When you start using the lectionary,
you discover two things.
First,
this is not a performance based
Bible in year plan.
You are a normal person,
and you are going to fail,
and you are going to miss readings,
and you are going to have days where you forget.
And there is no shame in that.
You are a human being.
Bible reading plans are for superhuman
guys named Tim and Chip.
You are normal.
You're name isn't Chip.
Everyday
you pick up where the reading is.
It is the reading for today.
You don't have to go back and read what you missed.
And you will get a chance to hear the bit you missed
some other time.
We keep coming back to the readings
again and again.
And you when you get into the readings,
you discover that the Bible comments on itself
all the time.
You begin to be immersed in a Biblical, kingdom worldview.
You discover that this God is all about relationship.
That he chooses and uses broken failed people
with struggles,
problems,
sins,
and failures.
In fact, you learn
that God uses broken
people
because that is all that is available.
And you begin to see yourself in those people,
and you begin to see God speak to you
the same way as he spoke to them.
And you begin to shaped
and transformed
by this story.
It is like being pickled.
You begin to take on the flavor
of this book.
And you begin to take on the flavor of the Author.
It is not about you.
It is about Jesus.
And it is about hearing and recognizing
his voice
his nature
and his ways.
And you begin to learn how God does things
and you begin to see like it says in Psalm 115:2.
The Lord sits in heaven,
what ever he wills to do
he does.
God does whatever he wants
and we are invited to come along for the ride.
Saturate yourself in all of the Bible,
make this story your story.
God is not a character in your story,
you are a character in God's story.
We meet daily for prayer followed by Holy Communion on Zoom at 7am ET, Midday UK time. Each week the House of Artisans gather at 1:00 ET on the same Zoom link.
We are a 501(c)(3) organization through the Missionary Church International. You can support Belonging House International here.
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