Devotional Reading (6)

  

“The harvest of the word-seeds sown to-day may not come until years later.  The harvest will come when least we expect it, and always with the note of being a revelation given to us from God, and not the work of our own minds.” Whiston.

 

May I say that it requires grace – enabled faith in God to read the Bible? I’m not saying that our dear Lord does not draw us to Himself when we read without faith, when we read with doubt or skepticism or even downright antagonism – for He is loving and merciful, and who really knows the depths of our hearts? Also, let me remind us that it is not the measure of our faith but the object of our faith which is critical. An ounce of belief in Jesus Christ outweighs a ton of faith in anything or anyone else, including ourselves.

 

But I am saying that as we live in relationship with Christ that we are called to trust Him in our Scripture reading, including trusting Him to bring His Word to fruition in its due seasons. His Word works within us in myriad ways and on myriad levels – and it works not only as distinct passages and paradigms, but as an eternal unity flowing from the Throne of God.

 

I am currently taking a medication labeled “ER”, it means “extended release.” When I take this medication it not only begins to work at that point, but it continues to work over the ensuing hours; elements of the medication are released immediately, the balance of the medication is released slowly. When we read the Bible a passage may have an immediate effect upon us, which is well and good and wonderful; we can also be assured that it will be released within our souls to work and live within us throughout our lives – it will have a long-term effect. Furthermore, as we continue to feed on God’s Word, His Word works as a holistic unity, as an interconnected whole – forming us in Christ, into His holy image.

 

We might say that there is an exponential element to the Word sown within our beings, and while it is difficult for us to conceptualize the exponential, we can experience it.

 

Whiston writes, “The harvest will come when least we expect it, and always with the note of being a revelation given to us from God, and not the work of our own minds.”

 

I think that there is a continuing sense of “surprise” in living in God’s Word and in His Word living in us. And yes, I think there are many harvests that come when we least expect them, but I also think that as seasons come and go that we find continual fruit to eat – we may not know each day what fruit we will find in the garden of the Bible, but we will normally find fruit; we may have to look for it, we will have to patient, but we will live lives of harvest. After all, Jesus tells us that His Father is glorified when we bear much fruit (John 15:8).

 

Paul prays “…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…” (Eph. 1:17 – 18).

 

The word “revelation” has the image of a curtain being pulled back, allowing us to see what is behind the curtain, to see what is already there. “The work of our own minds” cannot produce revelation, we cannot force the curtain back, we cannot “make it happen.” Unveiling belongs to the Holy Spirit, not to us, and we would do well to immerse ourselves in 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 2:16 in order to learn, by God’s grace, that we can know nothing without the Holy Spirit (a careful reading of what Jesus says to us about the Holy Spirit in John chapters 14 – 16 ought to be pondered in tandem with the passage in 1 Corinthians).

 

Living by faith, not by appearances (2 Cor. 5:7) is to be our way of life, not looking at the “seen” but the “unseen” (2 Cor. 4:18). That is, our lives are to be lived by seeing what is behind the curtain, and this curtain includes the ink and paper of the Bible – we can know the Bible as dead letter or we can know the Bible as life-giving Spirit, unveiling Jesus Christ. Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me” (John 5:39). Christ reveals Himself through the entire Bible (Luke 24:27, 44 – 45), but do we see Him throughout the entire Bible?

 

Are we experiencing a continuing unveiling of Jesus Christ in and through His Word?

 

One of the things I’m saying is that revelation is to be our way of life, and that that revelation is all about Jesus Christ, seeing Him afresh everyday in His Word, living in koinonia with Him, and others, everyday in and through His Word.

 

And this means that we ought to beware when people claim to have “revelation” that is not focused on Jesus Christ and that is not flowing from His Word. On the one hand revelation is no big thing because it is, or should be, a normal experience. On the other hand, of course, it is a big thing because it is the Spirit of God communing with the daughters and sons of God. This is like saying that breathing is no big thing, we do it all the time; and yet breathing is a very big thing, because if we don’t do it we will die.

 

Imagine a small group in which we share our unfolding revelation of Jesus Christ. Imagine a congregation in which the many members share their revelations of Jesus Christ, revelations which become One revelation. How heartbreaking to sit in a Sunday school group, or small group, and to hear no one share about our Lord Jesus…this has been the rule…this is normal…but what is normal should not be, no my friends, it should not be.

 

Experiencing revelation is the exception for us, but it is supposed to be the norm, it is to be our Way of Life in Christ Jesus. The prophet Elisha was surprised when God hid something from him (2 Kings 4:27), so we ought to be surprised when we aren’t seeing Jesus and seeing behind the veil in our normal course of life, for we are called to look at the things that are unseen.

 

If this Way of Life in Christ is not our Biblical expectation for ourselves and for one another, if it is not our expectation for our congregations…then we will get what we expect…which isn’t much. Our poor people have no idea what God truly desires for them, they do not know the glorious inheritance available to them today in Christ, they do not know that the veil has been rent…and we feed them with what?

 

Well, I am reminded once again of Pastor Levi Davenport. At a lunch gathering of pastors with a denominational official that I attended, the conversation went on and on about this and that until finally Levi, the oldest among us, with his glasses down on his nose and his eyes looking over them, with his fingers and hands interlocked on his slightly protruding tummy, glanced around the table and asked, “But what about Jesus? What about Jesus?”

 

What about our revelation of Jesus Christ?