Thursday, June 21, 2007

Tenderly opening and closing it again and again

Yesterday I was reading in God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew about how a local CHURCH in Bulgaria were given their first Bible. Tears of joy, hugging, patting on the back and outbursts nearly loud enough to draw attention to their underground church abounded.

It made my eyes well up as I thought of those that we gave Bibles, NT or John/Romans to in Zambia and their reaction of overwhelming joy as they took off to a quiet place and sat down to tenderly open and begin reading the pages of God's perfect word.

I immediately wrote some notes that I intend to share in Sunday School. It grieves me that there is such little care and reverence for God's word. People dont remember to bring it to church, they leave it behind, they toss it, spin it on the table like a gumball machine top, scribble in it or just plain never open it. What a tragedy. I do not comprehend how kids raised in Christian homes cant answer trivia questions about how many disciples Christ had, who was known for his wisdom in the Bible and the like. Is that Sunday Schools fault - think again.

IT BEGINS WITH REVERENCE TO GOD'S WORD.

God has magnified His word above His name it says in Psalm 138 (Andy spoke to this on His blog yesterday). www.Hindsey.blogspot.com

What fools we are when we have the answer to every question, the solution to our every problem, the wisdom of the Creator of the Universe, the message of Life Everlasting, the encouragement for the downtrodden and so much more and yet some treat it worse that the $5 video they bought at Walmart and will never watch again. At least that is prominently on display with the rest of their collection on shelves next to the Family Altar (aka TV set).
SHAME on us.

May God do what He needs to do to make the Word of God precious to us as it is to so many without it around the world. It cannot be so long as we want to keep a foot or two in the world.

2 comments:

Michael & Erika Barone said...

This is an excellent post. What a reminder what we have! A awful shame we take it for granted...

Hindsey said...

I remember one day in the lobby of our church, after AWANA or something like that (this was when I was a little kid, not the old man I am now), and I was kicking my Bible as if it were a toy. I remember Denise Hutchison saying something to me about it - along the same lines of your post - I sure did show more respect for it since that time...

Anyway, great post, and yes - thanks for the reminder!