Does your Bible need dusted?

 

Malachi 3:6-7

“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. ⁷ From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?”

What good is a mirror if you never look into it, what good is a car if it never leaves your garage, or what good does the Bible do for you if it only lays on a table in your home or takes up space on a shelve?  Not looking in the mirror may only affect your outer exterior, not using the car may only cause inconvenience to you and others, but not searching the Word of God for the answer to both this life and the one promised, is just foolish!

Jan and I took a vacation to Germany and we did not read or study about the places we were going, we only listened to others about what to see and do.  If we had done a little homework, we would have known we were going at an awful time and would have booked places to stay each night.  What happened most days instead of looking at the sites, we looked for a place to stay.  Two nights we were on a train going to places we did not want to go only to have a place to sleep. 

Many a person is going to make plans to go to heaven, they are better than most, they have given to help save the dogs and cats, or maybe the whales.  They went to church where the priest or preacher never taught the Scripture, but they did have a food handout on Thursday each month, and they helped hand out food.  They had two Bibles in their home that were dusted often and were a member of a book club, but the Bible was not searched for the way to live life today or to make sure you have bowed your knee to a Holy God.

Many a competent person may never have read the story of the rich man who ended up in hell, but if you have not and are reading this, you will find the account in Luke 16:1-31.  It is Jesus that is telling the story, and I want to share this part of the story with you, Luke 16:27-31,  ^“And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’  But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’  And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’  He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

I’m sure without any doubt that Jesus died on a cross, was buried, and rose from the dead, and today sits at the right hand of the Father.  I believed that as a child, but I was 27 years of age before I ask Jesus to forgive my sins.  By the world’s standards I was a good guy, but by God’s a wretched sinner, and all my good deeds to be in right standing with a holy God were as dirty rags.  One night after coming from the bar at about 10:00 pm I opened a hotel Bible and it opened to Romans 10:9-10, that night I bowed my knee to a Holy God, and He came into my life, and I became a new person with Christ’s Spirit living in me. 

I’m not sure what heaven is going to be like, but this I do know, Jesus promised me that He has already got my place ready, and when this life is over I’m going to be with Jesus, and that will be wonderful.  And it has not one thing to do with my goodness, but God’s grace and Jesus’ finished work on the cross.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice