May 8th, 2007
The Clear Picture
“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!”
John 5:39
Have you ever done those “Magic Eye” pictures? The ones that have a complex pattern repeated on a page, but if you look correctly at the page then you can see a clear 3-D picture pop out of the seeming jumble? A few years ago we went down to Binghamton with friends and stood in Barnes and Noble trying to do page after page of them – seeing who could actually discern the real picture in the midst of the chaos. I found that for me the best way to clearly see the picture is to put the page up to my nose, blur out all the small pictures, patterns, and colors and focus on what the true picture is. Today I was thinking that’s a bit how it is with Scripture.
As I have stated before, I love to study the Bible. The stories fascinate me as I try to imagine what these real people were thinking as they obeyed or disobeyed God. The poetry paints beautiful pictures of our world and God’s work in it. The wisdom humbles me but spurs me on as I seek to live a life of a “good and faithful servant”. But as I read the Bible, I must admit, it is easy to get bogged down in the things I don’t understand. For instance, how could these people who God so obviously saved, react like they did? Why does it seem like God proclaims one thing and then later a contradictory thing? How did Jesus live a boyhood completely free from sin? How did people know they were hearing from God? It would be very easy to get caught up in the jumble. I know people who, because the Bible does have difficult passages, give up reading it. However, then I have to question, why do we read the Bible?
Do we read the Bible so we look good – we can talk with all our Christian friends about what we read in devotions today? Do we read the Bible thinking that, because of our dedication to God’s word, we will chalk up a point in God’s score book? We may even read it out of guilt or habit. Plus, we are fascinated with the people, places, events of the Bible. But all those reasons are the jumbled outer pattern. We need to look beyond those small images to see the one large picture of God for which the page was created.
A few years ago on my spiritual journey I decided that, every time I sit down to read the Bible, I would pray that God would teach me one thing about himself. Not about who I am or God’s plan for me, not about the intrigue of prophecy or even how God worked in history, but one thing about WHO GOD IS. Now, admittedly, I sometimes forget, am in too much of a rush to thoroughly prepare myself…but that is my goal. And then, as I focus on Jesus, on God the Father, on the Holy Spirit, and learning who they are, then I believe my eyes will be opened to who I am and how I am to live in this life where God has placed me.
Jesus stated, “You search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the scriptures point to me.” My challenge to myself and to you is to pray that each time as we read the Bible, we will learn more about God and who he is. Allow the scriptures to point directly to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is the clear picture popping out of the stories, poems, wisdom and prophecy told in the Bible.
PS – I DIDN’T mean for this to be a promo, but it just occurred to me that this goes right along with the SuperDoc seminar we are currently teaching during Sunday School. If you would like to be challenged more on viewing life from GOD’s point of view, then come to the co-ed Sunday School. I will be teaching the same seminar to the children during the month of June – you won’t want to miss these classes – they are life changing!