Devotional Reading (8)

 

 

The following excerpt is from Whiston’s preface to Part I of Christian Perfection, which consists of a selection of Fenelon’s letters:

 

“In reading these letters we shall be helped if we keep in mind constantly a note, central in Fénelon's whole life and teaching, but which is often not a central note in our religious thinking and living to-day.  It is the great Christian note of theocentricity, that all true and Christian religion God himself is the main and central factor.  We today are so apt to think of religion from a human-centered perspective, and thus think of religion as our acts and words and life toward God and man. 

 

“But Fénelon's perspective is not ours.  For him, religion is primarily that which God himself wills and does in and upon man.  It is He who is utterly sovereign in history, even over the slightest details.  The Christian doctrine of Providence is thus central in his writings, as in his own life.  He does not attempt to argue or demonstrate the conviction.  It is rather the axiom which underlies all of his teaching. 

 

“We shall constantly be noticing his repeated plea, "Let God act." Man's role is an important one, but it is always subordinate to and dependent upon God's prior action.  Man's central act is to abandon his life into the hands of God's wise and loving sovereignty, and one by one to stop every inner resistance to God's redemptive work in him.” Charles F. Whiston.

 

In the previous post we saw that Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19). “I can do nothing on My own initiative…” (John 5:30a).

 

Then we asked, “If this was true of Jesus Christ, ought it not to be true of us?”

 

Consider that in John 15:4 – 5 Jesus says, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

 

This is the essence of what Whiston is writing, it is the essence of Fenelon’s life and ministry, it is the essence of devotional reading of the Bible – indeed of all Bible reading, and it is the essence of the Christian life. Or we might also say that what Whiston writes is the essence of the Christian life, for the Christian life is not about us but about Christ – about His life and work in us – as individuals and as His People.

 

And so Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20).

 

Yet today we live in an alternate universe, a different solar system, for today Christ is no longer the center around whom we revolve, but rather we are the center – and our preaching and teaching, our writing, our singing, our activities are centered around ourselves and not around and in Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder there is chaos within and without the professing church?

 

When we read the Bible we read it as forcing the Bible to submit to us, squeezing it into our puny mindsets and philosophies, into our arrogant ways of thinking – rather than submitting to God’s Word and surrendering to Him, thus allowing the Holy Spirit to work deep within us – transforming us into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. We approach the Bible as if we are the craftsmen and the Bible is the raw material for us to form into our own image – rather than approaching the Bible on bended knees and with humble hearts and with minds that need cleansing and clarifying and renovating.

 

This thinking and teaching is desecrating the Church, the Temple, the People of God – and we are frankly fools and the instruments of our own destruction. The enemy need not destroy the “church” if he can transform the “church” into his own image, an image of rebellion and self-centeredness. The joke is on us in that we think we are transforming the “church” into our image when we are actually transforming it into the image of the enemy, and so Paul writes that “he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God,” (2 Thess. 2:4). And fools that we are, we don’t recognize it – if “it works” we are on board, even if what works leads us away from the simplicity of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3).

 

What does this have to do with devotional reading of the Bible? Devotional reading is reading in which we are joined with our Lord Jesus, in which the Bridegroom comes to us in His Word and speaks to us as the groom speaks to the bride in Solomon’s Song. Devotional reading is reading and listening in which our being bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh is manifested and expressed and enjoyed – in which we truly say that “His banner over me is love.”

 

Biblical devotional reading is reading and receiving in which we are joined to our Lord Jesus, in which our souls are wedded to Him – and if indeed we are wedded to Him in a monogamous marriage with Him, then He will always and forever be the center of our universe, our lives will revolve around Him and in Him, He will be our delight and His Word the sustenance of our souls – and Jesus will be enough and more than enough, and we need not look elsewhere.