The Living Word of God
One of the biggest misconceptions about the Bible is that it’s just another book.
In fact, many Christians treat Scripture as if it’s just a collection of ancient letters and books that inform us about God and religious matters.
While the Bible is certainly a collection of ancient documents, it is also much more than that. It is the very word of God. The Bible is inspired by God, which means He spoke through humans to create these letters and books.
More than that though, God’s Word is living and active. The Holy Spirit uses the Bible to speak to us even today. This is what makes Scripture distinct from any other book.
James tells us in James 1:22-24 that the power of Scripture doesn’t just come by hearing it, but by living it out.
Scripture has the power to radically change the way we live, but we must take the effort to first read it, and then do what it says.
James says that anyone who reads Scripture and doesn’t follow God’s way is only deceiving themselves. We think we are following God simply by reading His Word, but God desires that we live out the truths of Scripture in our own life.
This is what it means to follow God’s way rather than our own.
Take a moment to consider a few ways you can begin to live out the truths in Scripture. Spend some time in prayer asking God to reveal to you an area of your life to transform by His Word. And then, resolve to not just hear God’s Word, but to do what He says as you follow after Him.
Psalm 55
English Standard Version
Cast Your Burden on the Lord
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil[a] of David.
55 Give ear to my prayer, O God,
and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!
2 Attend to me, and answer me;
I am restless in my complaint and I moan,
3 because of the noise of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they drop trouble upon me,
and in anger they bear a grudge against me.
4 My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
5 Fear and trembling come upon me,
and horror overwhelms me.
6 And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest;
7 yes, I would wander far away;
I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah
8 I would hurry to find a shelter
from the raging wind and tempest.”
9 Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues;
for I see violence and strife in the city.
10 Day and night they go around it
on its walls,
and iniquity and trouble are within it;
11 ruin is in its midst;
oppression and ...