My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly. -Psalm 119:167
Does your soul love the teachings of God? That is one of my goals in life, I hope it is yours as well. We need to be very careful not to let our faith be something that we merely talk about, while not allowing it to be something that genuinely moves us. It means something to say that we love God. It means more to live out what we say. To do that, all of us look to concepts, moments, interactions, etc. that help us with that goal. For me, as an introvert by nature, I find that those helps usually come not in a group setting, but on my own, with God in his word, or with a good book that teaches me more or challenges me faithfully to follow hard after God. We're not all hard-wired the same way, however. Some of you would say just the opposite. You find yourselves challenged to seek God more in group settings, maybe in a worship service, or in a group gathering with other believers, or by watching a video of one of your favorite speakers. One way is not necessarily better than the other. Like I said, God hard-wires us differently, and as I overheard a young person say just this past week, wouldn't it be a boring world if God made us all the same way?
With that being said, I do want to challenge you to make reading a part of your walk with God. We now have so many good books, bible helps and apps, and other resources available to us to help us in our faith that it is, I believe, unwise to ignore them. Now, to be sure, there is also a lot of junk out there available to us – we need to be discerning. But to simply dismiss the huge storehouse of teaching that is out there is almost…dare I say it? Sinful. Yep, you're right, a bit too strong, but I think I'll leave it in for dramatic effect. It is just so easy for us to become calloused in our walk of faith - to simply go through the motions - that we really must be quite intentional about keeping our faith alive. I believe that with many Christ-followers, Satan knows he cannot convince them to repudiate their faith. They are just too determined, with anchors that go too deeply into Christ to ever be persuaded to abandon the course they are on. They are too well guarded. But to make them sleepy, to tempt them toward a lackadaisical attitude...that might just be doable. And a sleepy Christian, although still a Christian, is an ineffective Christian, and that is better than nothing when your whole goal is to see as many people blindly walking toward a Christ-less eternity as possible, as it is with our enemy.
So, with that long introduction, I commend two books to you today, both of which I have donated to our church library which, if you have not noticed, is very much new and improved. Check it out. It's the room just off the Commons, formally known by the catchy title "Room 101." The library has been updated, by which I mean we have increased its size while decreasing its volume. In other words, bigger room...less books; and that is intentional. The pastors, along with Carol Amos, who heads up our library ministry, have gone through every book in the library and removed the books we would not recommend, only keeping the books we would. There are still many very good books to check out, and that number will continue to increase as we refill the library with helpful, orthodox, and readable works. Now where was I? Ah yes, two books I recently donated and highly recommend. The first is A Little Book for New Theologians by Kelly M. Kapic. This book is exactly what the title says, "little" and "for new theologians." It is a very handy 119 pages chock-full of good advice and helpful information for those who are just starting out and want some direction when it comes to theology. It's also good for people like me, who have been at this for a long time and need some good reminders. The second book is Taking God at His Word: Why the Bible is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What that Means for You and Me by Kevin DeYoung. This book is only 124 pages, but Pastor DeYoung does an outstanding job of succinctly showing us the value of Scripture while helping us to see that it is indeed exactly what it claims to be: the revelation of God to humankind. Stop by the library and check them out. It will only take you a short amount of time to read each book, and although doing so will not make you love God more by default, it will help. And help is what most of us need in this area.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jym