Jesus is the Light

For it is you who light my lamp;
the LORD my God lightens my darkness.
(Psalm 18:28 ESV)

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
(Psalm 27:1 ESV) 

For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light.
(Psalm 36:9 ESV)

  Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
(Psalm 119:105 ESV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
(John 1:1-18 ESV)

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
(John 8:12 ESV)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Quoting Jonathan Edwards

John Piper writes that 'the good news will not prove good to any for whom God is not the chief good.' He then quotes Jonathan Edwards:

The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God Himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place, their ornament and diadem, and their everlasting honor and glory. They have none in heaven but God; he is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death, and which they are to rise to at the end of the world. The Lord God, he is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem; and is "the river of the water of life" that runs, and the tree of life that grows, "in the midsts of the paradise of God." The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another: but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them. 

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Piper on God's Love

I am currently reading John Piper's Pierced by The Word. The first entry in this devotional is "How Strange and Wonderful is the Love of Christ!"

God's love for us is not mainly His making much of us, but His giving us the ability to enjoy making much of Him forever. In other words, God's love for us keeps God at the center. God's love for us exalts His value and our satisfaction in it. If God's love made us central and focused on our value, it would distract us from what is most precious; namely, Himself. Love labors and suffers to enthrall us with what is infinitely and eternally satisfying: God. Therefore God's love labors and suffers to break our bondage to the idol of self and focus our affections on the treasure of God. (13)

Several pages later,

But let us not tell Jesus what love is. Let us not instruct Him how He should love us and make us central. Let us learn from Jesus what love is and what our true well-being is. Love is doing whatever you need to do to help people see and savor the glory of God in Christ forever and ever. Love keeps God central. Because the soul was made for God. (15)

And

The most satisfying reality we could ever know is Jesus. So to give us this reality, He must give us Himself. The love of Jesus drives Him to pray for us, and then die for us, not that our value may be central, but that His glory may be central, and we may see it and savor it for all eternity. (16)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

A.W. Tozer, Quotes about the Bible

The question is this: What are we allowing the Word of God to say to us, and what is our reaction to that Word? Have we consumed and digested the book? Have we absorbed the Word of God into our lives? Or are we among those content to be a part of a Christian congregation where there are no extreme demands, where fellowship will be consistently pleasant and without responsibility? When we, as Christians, love our Lord Jesus Christ with heart and soul and mind, the Word of God is on our side! If we could only grasp the fact that God's Word is more than a book! It is the revelation of divine truth from the person of God Himself. It has come as a divine communication in the sacred Scriptures. It has come to us in the guidance and conviction imparted by the divine Spirit of God within our beings. It has been modeled for us in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word and the eternal Son. ~ A.W. Tozer, Jesus is Victor, p. 165

I have always felt that when we read and study the Word of God we should have great expectations. We should ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the Person, the glory and the eternal ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps our problem is in our approach. Perhaps we have simply read our Bibles as we might read a piece of literature or a textbook. ~ A.W. Tozer, Jesus, Our Man in Glory, 17

I am convinced that a committed Christian will show a zealous concern for the cause of Christ. He or she will live daily with a set of spiritual convictions taken from the Bible. He or she will be one of the toughest to move--along with a God-given humility--in his or her stand for Christ. Why, then, have Christian ministers so largely departed from exhortations to love righteousness with a great overwhelming love, and to hate iniquity with a deep, compelling revulsion? ~ A.W. Tozer, Jesus, Our Man in Glory, 66

Go to God's Word and you will find that sin is the most pressing, the most compelling, the most imperative problem in human life and society. The most pressing problem is not sickness. It is not war. It is not poverty. Sin is the basic problem because sin has to do with a person's soul. Sin does not relate merely to a person's short years on this earth. It involves that person's eternal future and the world to come. ~ A.W. Tozer, Jesus, Our Man in Glory, 74

None of us can ever be fully pleasing to God if we are not willing to be well taught in His Word. ~ A.W. Tozer, Jesus, Our Man in Glory, 104

The greatest encouragement throughout the Bible is God's love for His lost race and the willingness of Christ, the eternal Son, to show forth that love in God's plan of redemption. The love of Jesus is so inclusive that it knows no boundaries. At the point where we stop caring and loving, Jesus is still there loving and caring. ~ A.W. Tozer, Jesus, Author of Our Faith, 144

The difficulty we modern Christians face is not misunderstanding the Bible, but persuading our untamed hearts to accept its plain instructions. Our problem is to get the consent of our world-loving minds to make Jesus Lord in fact as well as in word. ~ A.W. Tozer, God's Pursuit of Man, 120

God's words are not for me to edit and tinker with, but to believe and obey. ~ A.W. Tozer, Experiencing God's Presence, 99

Regarding God's Word, let us love it and live in it and eat it and drink it and lie down on it and walk on it and stand on it and swear by it and live by it and rest in it. ~ A.W. Tozer, Experiencing God's Presence, 105

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Goals for December 2012

My Bible reading goals include finishing the book of Isaiah in the ESV Grow Bible. I'd also like to spend a good deal of time in the New Testament, in various translations. I haven't exactly chosen one translation to focus on in my New Testament readings.

Books I'd like to read this December:

Pierced by the Word: 31 Meditations for Your Soul by John Piper

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas. Edited by Nancy Guthrie.

Matthew (Commentary/Exposition) J.C. Ryle. (This isn't the edition I'm reading.)

Where God Finds You: 40 Devotions Bringing Bible Characters to Life. Anita Higman.

The Man Christ Jesus: Theological Reflections on the Humanity of Christ. Bruce A. Ware.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Week in Review: November 24-December 1

This week I read

ESV

• Psalms 51-150
• Isaiah 1-18

CEB

• Matthew 
• Romans
• Colossians

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Christ is All!

From J.C. Ryle's Holiness, chapter "Christ is All!"

There came a time when the world seemed sunk and buried in ignorance of God. After four thousand years, the nations of the earth appeared to have clean forgotten the God who made them. Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Grecian and Roman empires had done nothing but spread superstition and idolatry. Poets, historians, philosophers had proved that, with all their intellectual powers, they had no right knowledge of God, and that man, left to himself, was utterly corrupt. "The world, by wisdom, knew not God" (1 Corinthians 1:21). Excepting a few despised Jews in a corner of the earth, the whole world was dead in ignorance and sin. And what did Christ do then? He left the glory He had had from all eternity with the Father, and came down into the world to provide a salvation. He took our nature upon Him, and was born as a man. As a man He did the will of God perfectly, which we all had left undone; as a man He suffered on the cross the wrath of God which we ought to have suffered. He brought in everlasting righteousness for us. He redeemed us from the curse of a broken law. He opened a fountain for all sin and uncleanness. He died for our sins. He rose again for our justification. He ascended to God's right hand, and there sat down, waiting until His enemies would be made His footstool. And there He sits now, offering salvation to all who will come to Him, interceding for all who believe in Him, and managing by God's appointment, all that concerns the salvation of souls.

In every part of both Testaments Christ is to be found — dimly and indistinctly at the beginning, more clearly and plainly in the middle, fully and completely at the end — but really and substantially everywhere. Christ's sacrifice and death for sinners, and Christ's kingdom and future glory, are the light we must bring to bear on any book of Scripture we read. Christ'scross and Christ's crown are the clue we must hold fast — if we would find our way through Scripture difficulties. Christ is the only key which will unlock many of the dark places of the Word. Some people complain that they do not understand the Bible. And the reason is very simple. They do not use the key. To them the Bible is like the hieroglyphics in Egypt. It is a mystery, just because they do not know and employ the key.

The Father is merciful, the Son is merciful, the Holy Spirit is merciful. The same Three who said at the beginning, "Let uscreate," said also, "Let us redeem and save." I hold that everyone who reaches Heaven will ascribe all the glory of his salvation to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three Persons in one God. But, at the same time, I see clear proof in Scripture, that it is the mind of the blessed Trinity that Christ should be prominently and distinctly exalted, in the matter of saving souls. Christ is set forth as the Word, through whom God's love to sinners is made known. Christ's incarnation and atoning death on the cross are the great corner-stone on which the whole plan of salvation rests. Christ is the way and door, by which alone approaches to God are to be made. Christ is the root into which all elect sinners must be grafted. Christ is the only meeting-place between God and man, between Heaven and earth, between the Holy Trinity and the poor sinful child of Adam. It is Christ whom God the Father has sealed and appointed to convey life to a dead world (John 6:27). It is Christ to whom the Father has given a people to be brought to glory. It is Christ of whom the Spirit testifies, and to whom He always leads a soul for pardon and peace. In short, it has "pleased the Father than in Christ all fullness should dwell" (Colossians 1:19). What the sun is in the skies of Heaven — that Christ is in true Christianity.

We must come in the name of Jesus, standing on no other ground, pleading no other plea than this: "Christ died on the cross for the ungodly, and I trust in Him. Christ died for me, and I believe on Him." The garment of our Elder Brother, the righteousness of Christ, this is the only robe which can cover us, and enable us to stand in the light of Heaven without shame. The name of Jesus is the only name by which we shall obtain an entrance through the gate of eternal glory. If we come to that gate in our own names, we are lost, we shall not be admitted, we shall knock in vain. If we come in the name of Jesus, it is a passport and shibboleth, and we shall enter and live. The mark of the blood of Christ is the only mark that can save us from destruction. When the angels are separating the children of Adam in the last day, if we are not found marked with that atoning blood — we had better never have been born. Oh, let us never forget that Christ must be all to that soul who would be justified! We must be content to go to Heaven as beggars, saved by free grace, simply as believers in Jesus, or we shall never be saved at all.

The true way to be strong — is to realize our weakness, and to feel that Christ must be all. The true way to grow in grace — is to make use of Christ as a fountain for every minute's necessities. We ought to employ Him as the prophet's wife employed the oil — not only to pay our debts — but to live on also. We should strive to be able to say, "The life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (2 Kings 4:7; Galatians 2:20).

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible