your motive going to scripture

your motive going to scripture

We encounter countless stories in the Bible where Jesus rebukes those who’s motives are wrong. However, if we approach it with the right motives our lives and those around us will be changed for eternity. 2 Timothy 2:15 says Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Jeremiah calls God’s word a hammer and fire. Paul calls it a sword. It is a dangerous book. It is not a safe book and if not handled correctly it can be like handing a match or gun to a child. It has been wrongly divided to justify, sin, to promote unbiblical and heretical teachings. It has been unjustly divided to split churches, and indoctrinate wars. To rightly divide it we must approach Scripture with the right motives.

 

1 – The Bible is as much Macro as it is Micro:  Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. The first motive is crucial because what has happened in our culture is Christianity has become a “personal” thing. There is a personal component to it, but we have to understand that Scripture was given to build up and edify the church. Each part of the body, each person is to take from Scripture the Truth of God so it enters the marrow and veins of the Body of Christ which is the church-us. Choosing to read or not read it effects the corporate body as well as the individual. Just as choosing to eat or not eat would effect your own body.

2 – I am interpreted placing myself under scripture. I don’t interpret the Scripture from over top of it. 
Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. 
Scripture isn’t to be read in a way to find justification for the way you are living or to attack others. Scripture is a blade that filets parts of our life and lays us open to the leading of the spirit. Only this way will we truly be transformed in the sanctification process to be image bearers of Jesus Christ. We must come under it anticipating our soul, spirit, joints and marrow, hearts and minds being penetrated by it. It is obvious when a person is reading this way. We should not be so foolish to think that the life we are living is in any way hidden from God. We will give an account before God one day and pastors, elders, teachers, deacons, leaders in the church will be held more accountable according to Scripture. There are lives in our city that are at stake and much of our success will be determined by placing ourselves under Scripture.

3– I pick up the Bible for life transformation & not just mental information.
John 5:39-40 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. 

It breaks my heart when someone walks away from a passage with nothing more than head knowledge that can be used in Bible trivia and sword drills. When we are putting God’s word into our heart it will come out of our mouths, from our hands, and from our feet. We’ll ask the right questions about the Scripture to seek application and transformation. A true Christ follower who is in God’s word is seeing life change. That doesn’t mean your reaping blessing, it means you understand it won’t be easy but it will be easier with God’s word. It’s you encountering life through the cross knowing your year won’t be amazing because you memorize a verse or carry the Bible with you in your glove compartment. It’s you knowing you are already blessed whether in tragedy, discovery and whether you ever encounter celebrations.

4 – I pick up the Bible for function second and relationship first.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ 

What I dislike even more than the former is when people use Scripture as little more than a motivational pep talk that doesn’t put eternity on the line with function. If you take the cross out of the passage, if you don’t deal with our battle of sin, you’re left with application that won’t benefit your eternity nor transform your spirit and nature.

Don’t maker your primary motive for reading the Bible for a How to….or for a RaRa motivational makeover. Many people go to the Bible looking at it as some magic how to manual: how to be happier, how to be more successful, how to have a great marriage… Their prayers are noble: make me a better parent, a better spouse, how can I be a better boss? The problem is without a personal relationship with Christ, without knowing the power of the cross backing up the functionality, you’ll find yourself chasing after those How to’s for the rest your life and being left empty. Everything in Scripture is supported and framed through having a relationship with Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Scripture is clear that there will be those who say they are living functionally and teaching biblical functionality in the name of God. However, God will say I never knew you. God calls them evildoers, because what they are doing isn’t being done by the power of Christ.

It sounds very insensitive. At least that’s what someone would tell me if I called a parent training other how to be better parents, but forgetting to introduce those parents to Christ. Right? Most would call them a great parent doing a very caring and righteous thing. But God’s word is going to have the last word. These would be the people who fall in to the category of saying they walk in the light but live in darkness because they don’t have a relationship with Christ, but on the outside they may seem to have it all together, when on the inside they don’t. If we concentrate on the relationship first, the functionality will follow.