"John the Baptist came preaching,..Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!...From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, 'Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.'...And Jesus went about all Galilee,..preaching the gospel of the Kingdom...." (From Matthew 3 & 4)
If my devotional procedure appears a little different, it is because I am reading through the Bible every two months until the end of the year, at least. Honestly, I am doing this mostly for my own "salvation," of course, not as in, "born again," but as in the day to day overcoming, walking in Jesus and His Kingdom Purposes. If so many church-goers would just skip some of the frivolities of life, they would discover that you can do more Bible reading than you ever thought possible. "Religious spirit," some would say. Not if you were 27 years old and lost a most precious friend.
The pop phrase, "paradigm shift," tries to tell me that what I propound, preach, teach, write, or in other words, my theological approach to life, has been bypassed by more relevant, adaptable thinking. Nonsense. Do pray, however, for today's "five-fold" ministries; they are under constant temptation to build their "ministries," churches, missions by listening to the cacophony of "how-to-be-successful" ministry books, seminars, conferences. Reading the Bible daily will keep them and us from the great deception, which the Bible tells us will be ever louder, more clever, and so much so, "as the day draws near." Cleverness will not.
No amount of anything else a Believer does will substitute for Bible reading. Jesus tells us of, "....men's hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the power of the heavens will be shaken." But this will NOT happen to the People, "who follow the Lamb wherever He goes," the people who, "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness," the people who are, "in His law...day and night."
Father, in Jesus' Name, though a painful process, I thank You for "making" this all very real to me. Amen.
*************************************
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
Hebrews 12:2
Hebrews 12:2
