If you want to get to know Jesus better, read His Word. If you want to love Jesus, hold and keep His Word (see John 14:23-24)
“Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”
John 14:23-24 NIV
If someone who says they are a Christian wants to grow in their relationship with Christ, read the Word and allow it’s transformative power to renew and shape your mind (Romans 12, Hebrews 4:12)
As our trust and intimacy with the Lord Jesus and His Word grows, it starts to replace the things of this world, including what we’ve learned in the past and the beliefs that we hold that are contrary to God’s Word.
A person who professes to be a Christian and really is one will start showing signs of a renewed mind (Romans 12) and transformed life (James 2). Both should be present in someone’s life to reflect true redemption by our Creator.
Because our actions and choices in life stem from what we believe, how effective can we be with our minds anchored into secular ideas rather than God’s Word?
A person whose worldview is anchored to biblical foundations will also be constantly reminded that they are in the world but not of the world, and that the world has fallen into the deception of the enemy (1 John 5:19).
Blessings will come to those who completely embrace the whole Scripture. For example, Jesus said, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law [Torah] of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. (Psalms 1:1–3).
Consider that God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own hand (Exodus 31:18, “He gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.”). When God wrote the Fourth Commandment, he stated:
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:11).
It seems from this passage that God told us what to believe, and how to model our lives: six days of work followed by a day of rest.
Our weeks have been like this ever since the beginning. After all, we don’t have a five-day week, do we? Back in the 1920’s the Soviets tried a five-day week and a six-day week, but it was a major failure. So they went back to a seven-day week. The seven-day week seems to be hardwired into human existence—as if God designed us to work six days and take a rest on the seventh.
Taking a careful look at the context of the Ten Commandments, it wouldn’t make much sense if nine out of the Ten Commandments were literal and one was figurative. How could lying, adultery, and stealing be figures of speech? They are rather black and white—just like the days of Creation. We certainly don’t work for six long ages, but six days, then we rest. God gave us a day of rest to reset our internal clocks. God didn’t have to give us that seventh day, but He knew we needed it.
Shabbat Shalom my friends!