FulLife Devotional
The Bible Jesus Read
by Philip Yancey
Chapter One | Is the Old Testament Worth the Effort?
"'Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God,' wrote Paul to the Christians in Rome. I would rather consider only the kindness of God, but by doing so I would construct my own image of God instead of relying on God’s self-revelation."
Perhaps one of the hardest concepts for us to grasp about God is that He is a God of paradox. He is both merciful and just. He loves us, yet He disciplines us. He is capable of doing miracles but so often chooses to work through providence.
How do we even try to understand how all the pieces fit together?
It’s definitely a struggle. But this is one thing I know: it is a struggle that we need to have. We cannot simply declare the kindness, love, peace, and mercy of God and ignore the fact that He is holy and just, that He hates sin. We cannot turn God into what we want Him to be… Instead, we need to accept the whole picture. Take a few minutes and list as many characteristics or attributes of God as you can think of. Here, I’ll get you started: faithful, unchanging, holy, merciful, just…
Chapter Two | Job: Seeing in the Dark
"God did not answer all Job’s questions, but God’s very presence caused his doubts to melt away. Job learned that God cared about him intimately and that God rules the world. That seemed enough."
There are some days when I act like Job, flinging questions at God because I don’t like what’s going on in my life. Sometimes I ask out of hurt, sometimes out of anger. Sometimes I can barely get the words out because I’ve grown so weary from doing battle.
As those times come and go, I’ve found that I’m not necessarily looking for answers. I just want to know that He is still there.
God never promises that we won’t have hard times. But He does promise to be there with us when we do. And that, my friend, is one of the greatest promises that we can hold onto. There are days when He seems so far away, but perception often fails to show us the truth. May we trust His words to us – that He is good, that He is in control, and that He loves us more than we can imagine.
Chapter Three | Deuteronomy: A Taste of Bittersweet
"Moses' life had a single theme: God did it."
Take a few minutes and look back on your life. List key events, people who impacted you (for good or for bad), memorable experiences…
“If it weren’t for _____, I’d never have _____.”
“_____ had a great influence on me. From him/her, I learned _____.”
“Because of (this job), I am now _____.”
It’s amazing, sometimes, to see how far we’ve come. We made it through some hard times. Perhaps we’ve gotten our ideal job position. One thing leads to another and…
Too often I take credit for my own “success.” To tell you the truth, I had little to no influence as to who I hung out with when I was little. I just took one step at a time as a student and found myself moving more and more into a particular field of study. People came into my life and people left – I couldn’t control their actions. But each class, each person, each experience has turned me into the person I am today.
All I can say is… God did it. Somehow His hand is intertwined into every aspect of my life. And His hand is intertwined in yours, as well. Thank Him for that…
Chapter Four | Psalms: Spirituality in Every Key
“More than any other book in the Bible, Psalms reveals what a heartfelt, soul-starved, single-minded relationship with God looks like.”
Life tends to go up and down. Sometimes it’s easy to believe in a loving, caring God; other times, we struggle to believe in a God at all. We chase community to find that relationships can hurt. We embrace solitude only to discover that we can’t live alone.
Craving intimacy with God, we read His word; yet by reading His word, we learn that we are sinning in a certain area in our life and so we hide our copy of the Bible in a drawer so we don’t have to be confronted with our sin anymore.
We fight for justice, yet ask for mercy. We want others to forgive us, yet so often hold onto grudges.
The book of Psalms gives us a glimpse into some of the deepest emotional and spiritual struggles that people have faced. Sometimes the poems, the songs, the prayers are full of praises, but a lot of the time they are full of hurt and anger. One of the key points of this book is that the people took everything to God… not just the praises, but the questions, the accusations, the hurt.
May we learn to do the same…
Chapter Five | Ecclesiastes: The End of Wisdom
“Ecclesiastes insists that the stones we trip over are good things in themselves: ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time’ (3:11)…. Despair descends as we abuse God’s good gifts; they seem no longer gifts, and no longer good.”
There are some people who will tell you that the Internet is evil. It encourages secret addictions, improper relationships, and a bad sort of anonymity. But I think we can all agree that the Internet, in and of itself, is not evil; it is how people use the Internet that is evil.
We can say the exact same thing about other things: food, alcohol, television, etc. Each of these things can be used for good – for fellowship, for education – but each can also be abused. As Christ-followers, we must do everything we can to use God’s good gifts in the way they were meant to be used. We must discipline ourselves, we must keep a proper perspective, we must ground ourselves in His word so that we can keep a proper balance.
After all, none of these things will truly satisfy us. Jesus Christ is our only Savior, our only hope. Seek after Him with all your heart and the rest won’t be such a struggle.
Chapter Six | The Prophets: God Talks Back
“One who reads the prophets encounters not an impassible, distant deity but an actual Person, a God as passionate as any person you have met.”
Contrary to popular opinion today, God seems to – in some way, shape, or form – experience emotions, just like you and me. Just check out Hosea 11.
Verses 3 and 4 speak of God’s love: “It was I who taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand…. I led Israel along with my ropes of kindness and love. I lifted the yoke from his neck, and I myself stooped to feed him.”
Verse 3 also reveals to us God’s disappointment: “But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who took care of him.”
Verse 6 shows us God’s anger at their sin: “War will swirl through their cities; their enemies will crash through their gates and destroy them, trapping them in their own evil plans.”
And verse 8 tells us of God’s compassion: “Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go?... My heart is torn within me.”
I don’t think God experiences emotions in the same way we do, but He does have emotions. He responded to the way the Israelites behaved; He responded to their sin.
I wonder how He feels about my behavior today…
Chapter Seven | Advance Echoes of a Final Answer
“God loves people not as a race or species, but rather just as you and I love them: one at a time. We matter to God.”
Sometimes I imagine God looking down at all His creation… He sees the trees, the mountains, the oceans, the animals, and us – human beings. And usually, it’s just a glob of people, indistinguishable from each other.
It blows my mind to think that He knows us each one by name, that He knows when we are struggling or when we are celebrating, that He can somehow keep track of each one of us without confusing us with someone else. But He does. For some reason, the Creator of heaven and earth, the awesome and powerful God cares about each one of us.
Let that sink in.
He cares about you. You matter to Him.
And as we take time to get to know Him, as we read His word and pray… that truth will become more and more real to us. Because in story after story in the Bible, we see God reaching out to His people. To Noah. To Abraham. To Jacob. To David. To Rahab. To Hannah. To Peter.
He reaches out to you and me, too… if only we let Him.
- Kari Lee
Visit our store to buy The Bible Jesus Read by Philip Yancey now.
_________________________________________________________
Do you have a question or comment for Kari? Fill out the form below!
Note: We will not use your e-mail address in any way. It will not be used to spam or add you to a "list" to receive information. It is simply for your feedback to us, and it provides a way for us to contact you in case we would like to follow up on your input.
