Ever heard someone say God’s word is living and wondered what they meant? Me too! Maybe it’s because I expected to see my bible breathing before my eyes one day or find something green sprouting from its leather binding….I discovered what this phrase meant on one specific week of my Discipleship Training School (DTS).
I’ve always had a healthy respect for the bible and known different verses to pull out in case of any trouble. However, one thing that is deeply encouraged during DTS is to read your bible. So I started reading the bible. Like actually reading it.
During my DTS lectures that week several verses of the bible that I had been reading in my own time would surface and even be explained with new meaning. Immediately this had my attention, I was engaged on a deeper level and the verse was somehow more relevant to my life, but not through my own doing. Encouraged I kept reading my bible…
Later on in the week, my DTS school decided to read the whole bible out loud – we would sign up to do ‘reading shifts’ together at various points during the day. I signed myself up as I was clearly on a bible spree by this point. To my amazement the bible chapters which I had been reading and which had been discussed in lectures that day just so happened to be the verses that we were scheduled on to read. As I read the words aloud I found that they began to take on even more meaning. I couldn’t believe that the same bits of writing could keep meaning more and more things!
By the end of the week, I was excited. I started talking with my friends, going on walks enjoying nature and having conversations late into the night. I would ask my friends what they were learning and how they were doing – and of course you guessed it, the same themes would surface! I couldn’t shake these verses and ideas from my head and sometimes I would find that my memory would be jogged – things that I had forgotten from years ago that I know full well I wouldn’t have been able to remember on my own. I felt a spark in my life and when I talked about these things I would see the same spark in the eyes of my friends – the bible was really talking to us and it was living!
And it doesn’t stop after one good week! God wants to give us a fresh word for the day, week, season or year in our lives. If a bible passage is brought to our attention at different times in our lives, it’s often because we need to learn things again but to a greater depth. My DTS was three years ago now and the same bible verses are still special to me…but now they hold even greater significance as I go through each change, experience or season in my life.
For me now it’s not so much about whether I should check my bible’s heart rate but it’s more about asking myself – “Am I really living?”
“The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12)
Now to discover this for yourself – here’s two practical tips and a quick exercise:
- Don’t leave your bible on a dusty bookshelf or tucked neatly in your drawer. Leave it lying open on your kitchen table, put it right next to your pillow. When you’re making a cup of tea flip it open while you’re waiting for the kettle to boil and ask God to give you something fresh. This stuff is alive and it’s sharp!
- Have conversations with people! Ask what’s going on in their life. It might be that what they’ve been learning aligns with what you’re learning too. Maybe what you’ve been reading in the bible is fresh and applicable to their situation and you can encourage them.
Now it’s your turn:
- Pick a passage of the bible
- Pray and think about the meaning of the words
- Ask God to speak to you throughout your day today
- Keep looking at the passage you picked during your week…unless it makes it’s way back to you first 😉
Want your bible to come to life? Sign up for the Discipleship Training School
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