Sugar Stick Junk?

I posted this elsewhere several weeks ago, but would like to share it on here:

"All right. So, at camp we had an amazing speaker who touched some pretty delicate subjects, and some normal ones. He honestly taught me more in one night than I have learned through sitting through church for years. That's my intro....

We were studying James,particularly 1:19, and several points he madestuck out to me, andhow I so easily ignore that. Or wonder what the answer is, when it's right in front of me. So, while this is not entirely my ownwords, it pierced me, and I hope some other hearts here get poked. Italics and underlining is stuff thathit me. The Bible is the perfect law of liberty, which sets you free. It must be acceptedand it must bepracticed.

If the Bible is life, is vital, why are we not reading it?

We have to give up the sugar stick junk - just like a child can't live off candy,a true believer can not grow in his faith through only hearing.

1 Corinthians 1:18

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Ok - we've already established that the Bible is life, obvious fact is life is vital - and now we see that it is the power of God. How is it that we take that for granted? We have in our hands, a book, a book written by the Power who spoke this entire world into motion - AND IT IS THE POWER OF GOD. How can we sit and merely think about it and not fall on our faces before Him? The power of God is in our very hands - how is it that we just let it sit on a shelf collecting dust and mothballs? Why is that Power not ripped, torn, and tear-stained from moments of awe, confession, forgiveness, realization, and joy? (ok that part was mine which is why it got crazy for a second there)

There's a quote that says something like "you can bet that a prayerwarrior does not spend as much time on his knees as He does reading the Word of God."You cannot pray if you do not spend time in the Word. The Word of God is a scalpel and God is the surgeon. Every time you read it He opens you up and pulls out more sin.

The Word of God must be practiced:

James 1:22-23, 24
"But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, decieving yourselves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediatley forgets what kind of a man he was."

What is a doer? Someone who trains himself and does it. Let's go backto when we were learning what an action verb was - doing. Doing does not mean thinking, contemplating, supposing. Doing is the act of performing or carrying out something. Doing is not

sitting in church listening half-heartedly. Doing is a responsibility, liability, a burden.

On my signature the other day I had the words: La liberté veut dire de choisir votre fardeau -

translated that means Freedom means choosing your burden. Just think on that fact, freedom means choosing your burden.

Now what I say here might go off a little theologically speaking - so I'd like an adult or someone older to correct anything I say that's blantently wrong: So the Bible is life, which is vital, which is the power of God. Salvation gives freedom from the enslavement to sin - but, like Paul says, it doesn't stop there. We are called to be doers - someone who has responsibility, liability or a burden. Because of salvation we have freedom, we are to be doers and not hearers only. We are to choose our responsibility. There are many responsibilities out there, but to be doers we must be in God's Word - we must be actively seeking the will of God.

How can we actively seek the will of God? How can we even know what or where it is?
Many people say prayer -and that is fundamental in seeking the will of God. But to truly pray you must truly read. You must activley open the letters God himself has written to us an

d read, and study, and read, and study. And pray about what you read about which leads us

here:

Knowing His Word reveals His Will
There's the cold hard truth on how to find God's Will: WE MUST KNOW THE WORD
I know that in my personal life I have not read the Bible whole-heartedly, in the desire to learn, I have not actively sook God's Will.
Starting tomorrow morning at 6am I am going to wake up, set my Bible and devotional on my deck, and pray that God will reveal to me what passages I need to learn from and reveal what he wants me to see. Then I'll read and meditate on those passages, and write down my personal thoughts and feelings, then I'll let my heart sing out in praises to God.

Wow, I am so tired. By those last few paragraphes I was falling asleep and tried to untangle my thoughts - so if it's crazy, it's my fault. And I guess most of that turned out be my own thoughts coming from his questions and then building from there

If there's anything in there that anyone objects to the theological validity in it- then please bring it up and comment on it."

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Think on it.

~Impossible is Nothing~

-Be a World-Changer-

SarahLydia