Love, Letters, And A Run Around The Block.

In yesterday's sermon, Pastor Richie shared an observation: many Christians, though claiming to love God, don't read His word.

His comment reminded me of my younger days, when part of the Sunday School experience included memorizing blocks of verses, and even chapters, of Scripture. Although we as children did not have a deep comprehension of the words we were learning, we were engaged in an exercise that would be part of our "keeping" process as adults. As the Psalm says, "Make my footsteps steady in Your word; do not let any sin control me" (see Psalm 119:133).

His comment was reinforced at the end of the service, as we celebrated the accomplishments of some of our children who won awards for Scripture verse memorization. We applaud those who engage the word of God in their youth.

What hinders us from absorbing and obeying the word of God as adults? Perhaps it is that we have abandoned our first love, and therefore we do not long to read the letters He has written us. Perhaps it is that we are not concerned about sin's insidiousness, and therefore we do not seek to escape its control. Perhaps we are consumed with other things, and therefore the spiritual discipline of Scripture reading is not on our "short list" of what to accomplish in a given day.

Below is Philippians chapter 3, which was read in its entirety at the start of the sermon. May I encourage us all to take a verse, or a block of verses, and "run" with it today?

Keep it in your mind; write it down and read it while stuck in traffic or standing on line; go for broke and memorize some or all of it. (See Joshua 1:8)

The Lover of our souls has written us a Book of love. Let us read it and fall in love with Him again.


Philippians 3

Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! To write this again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.

Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials – though mine too are significant. If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, I have more: I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee. In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless. But these assets I have come to regard as liabilities because of Christ.

More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things – indeed, I regard them as dung! – that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness– a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness. My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already attained this – that is, I have not already been perfected – but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let those of us who are “perfect” embrace this point of view. If you think otherwise, God will reveal to you the error of your ways. Nevertheless, let us live up to the standard that we have already attained.

Be imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and watch carefully those who are living this way, just as you have us as an example. For many live, about whom I have often told you, and now, with tears, I tell you that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, they exult in their shame, and they think about earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.