God’s Word | His Glory My Joy, a blog of Author Luana Ehrlich

Now It Gets Personal!

December 8, 2015 2 comments

There are so many ways to read the Bible. You can read it like great literature, read it for academic purposes, read it to understand a culture, read it to gain a sense of morality, or, of course, read it for a myriad of spiritual reasons—to know GOD, to know His Son, Jesus, to know the working of His Spirit.

I’ve discovered the best way to read the Bible is to make it personal, to view the message of God’s Word as personal, and to understand the words as written for me—personally. How’s that for personal?

The Bible itself encourages this method of Bible study. David, speaking in Psalm 16:11, says, “You make known to me the paths of life.” David has a personal relationship with God. While it’s true the Bible has a message for all people, God intends for that message to be understood and received by each individual.

I read through the Bible every year, and I’ve used a variety of Bible Reading Plans to do this. This year, I plan to use a journaling Bible and to concentrate my note-taking on how a passage speaks to me personally, what personal message God intended for me in the verses, and in what way a particular Scripture can deepen my personal relationship with Him.

You can find out more about a Journaling Bible here. For a great selection of various Bible Reading Plans, click here.

How personal can it get? Psalm 139 says it all.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
²You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
³You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
⁵You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

⁷Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
⁸If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
⁹If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
¹⁰even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
¹²even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

¹³For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.^[a]
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

¹⁷How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you

Categories: Bible, Christian Living, Devotionals, God's Word, Personal Tags: Bible take personally, Good Bible Reading Plans, Journaling Bible study, Personal Bible study, Take This Personally

I Don’t Love You

October 23, 2015 Leave a comment

The words, “I don’t love you,” have to be the most hurtful words ever spoken. As human beings, we are born with the desire to be loved. Whether it’s romantic love, family love, brotherly love or even self love, God gave us the desire to be loved and to love God, others, and ourselves.

Love comes from God. “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” (1 John 4:7).

Because human love is so flawed by sin, none of us can ever love ourselves or another human being perfectly. In the same way, until we receive our glorified, perfected bodies, we can’t love God perfectly.

God has no such hindrances. He loves perfectly. On three different occasions, the prophet Daniel was told by the angel Gabriel that he was greatly loved by God. “I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.” (Daniel 9:23). The same thought is expressed in Daniel 10: 11 and Daniel 10:19.

How sweet those words must have sounded to Daniel! How would you like to hear those words for yourself? Well, you can.

Paul says in Ephesians 2:4-5: “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses,made us alive together with Christ.”

God’s love is on display for us in Romans 5:8.“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Like Daniel, God sent word to us that we are greatly love. He sent His Word in the form of His Son who demonstrated how much he really loved us by paying the penalty for our sins by His death on the cross

Accept His love. Bask in His Love. Know His love for all eternity.