Of Infinite Value

Thinking about the Benefts of God's Word
Searching through God's Word, this is what it tells me about itself:
God’s Word gives us freedom, strength, and purity, it leads us to obedience, produces fruit, gives us health, guidance, confidence, comfort, revival, understanding, discernment, insight, and restoration, it makes us wise, enlightens our eyes, warns us, leads us to trust  God, motivates us to worship, gives us an eternal perspective, it is the best light for the past, present, and future, it reveals the origin, nature and purpose of man, it sets straight, clarifies right and wrong, directs, encourages, reveals God’s heart and handiwork, shows us what pleases Him, provides spiritual nourishment, teaches us patience, courage, perseverance and joy, it gives us hope, is the best marriage manual, teaches us how to forgive and how to be forgiven, how to find relief, how to love and be loved, it reveals God’s goodness and His justice, His standards and His mind, without it we are deceived, it keeps us from sin, it sanctifies us, gives us instruction, success, prosperity, it provides us with all our needs in the spiritual realm, reveals what is to be learned, taught and obeyed, gives us adequacy and makes us equipped for doing good, it convicts, and convinces, and is the standard by which we will be judged.

Whew! And that's not even all. There are 3 things that will last forever. God, people and His Word. Each literally have infinite worth. Wow! Oh Lord, help us value Your Word more and more each day.

God's Word is Awesome Because He Communicates to us Through it
God spoke directly to Adam and Eve, personally and audibly. Sin was brought into the picture and that was broken. Then God communicated with people mostly through dreams, visions, and prophets. Hearing from God was not an everyday thing. He then put on flesh and came and communicated face to face with people. Now since Christ is in heaven at the right hand of the Father, He mostly communicates to us through His Word. We are the most blessed of all time. EVER!  They would get to hear God once and that is it. We get to have Him communicate with us however often we want!

The more we hear God’s Word, the more we become accustumed to hearing His voice, and the more we become aligned to what He desires, loving what He loves and hating what He hates. His Word not only reveals His character to us, but also His desires for and of us. What a gift!

His Word, our daily bread, facilitates intimacy with Him. Having experiences day after day of God speaking to us, using His Word as a double edged sword is like storing up bonded moments. So that when we get to heaven and are standing face to face with Jesus it will be like seeing a friend from long ago and you pick up as though you had never be apart. It will be a sense of “I know you… we’ve lived life together.”  

We grow in hearing God communicate with us through practice. And the more we are in God’s Word, the more we will recognize His voice. And the more we will be mature, able to discern truth from error. (Heb. 5:16)

God's Word is Awesome Because it Gives us Confidence In Our Faith

Why?
1. Because it is prophetically accurate. There are over 330 prophesies concerning the coming Messiah. Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled, to the letter, every one of these prophesies. By using the modern science of probability in reference to eight prophesies, we find the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophesies is one chance in 100,000,000,000,000,000 or 10 to the 17th power. (Peter Stoner in Science Speaks). “If we would take 10 to the 17th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas they would cover the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and thoroughly mix the whole mess state-wide.  Then blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wished, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that it is the right one.  What chance would he have of getting the right one?  Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophesies and them all coming true in any one man, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.”

                * If one man fulfilled 48 prophesies, it would be one chance in 10 to the 157th power. With
                    330 prophesies, it is one chance in 10 to the 1081st power.

                   Some examples of these prophecies are that He would be pierced in His hands and His feet 500
                   years before crucifixion was even invented, His exact birth city, with a specific lineage from
                  Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Judah to David, that He would be beat, spit on and have his beard
                  pulled out, that He would be crucified with thieves, be betrayed by a friend to death for 30 pieces
                  of silver, have no bones broken, have his clothes gambled for at death, having his side pierced
                  upon His death, the sun going dark at his death and raising Himself from the dead 3 days later.

2. It is scientifically accurate – it describes:
Earth’s foundation is hung on nothing Jer. 26:7
Light moves Job 38:19,20
Air has weight Job 28:25
Blood is the sources of life and health Lev. 17:11
Wash hands in running water when dealing with disease Lev. 15:13
Incalculable number of stars Jer. 33:22
Radioactive decay 2 Peter 3:10.
Clouds and condensation Job 26:8, 37:11.
Earth’s spherical shape Is. 40:22.
The expansion of the universe Job 26:7.
That air has weight Job 28:25.
Hydrothermic vents Gen. 7:11 and Job. 38:16.

3.      It’s authors agree- All of it is God making himself known and pointing to one great person and event.  Jesus and salvation. Jesus alone accurately described the human condition and the remedy, and provided a remedy for that condition.  It was written on 3 continents, in 3 different languages, over 1500 years, over 40 generations by 40 authors of different backgrounds, social status, languages and ethnicities.

4.      The Bible is historically accurate- It talks about real people, places, practices and events collaborated by archeology.

            · Hitites – critics condemned the Bible’s description of this group; archeological digs have since
               proven their existence. 
            · Caesar Agustus’ census at the time of Christ’s birth.
            · Jericho’s walls falling outward.
            · The five cities of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire. (layers of sedimentary rock molded
               together by intense heat found at the exact place.)

Oh Lord, what a gift you have given us! Thank you for making your thoughts and passions and history available to us. Would you continue to use it to draw us closer to You, to mold us and shape us into the people You desire. Help us prioritize spending time withYou reading Your Word.

#133 His Word wont return void
#134-192 The benefits of God's Word listed at the begining.
#193 Substance of which we can put our faith in-His Word, His accurate and trustworthy Word.
#194 Getting to meet hundreds of interested students this last week.
#195 Three girls in particular that I am almost brought to tears by the gratitude that God is placing them in our care for training to send as laborers.
#196 Many women saying "this is an answer to my prayer" in reguards to www.GrownTogether.com
#197 Facebook and the ability to connect with students without having to talk on the phone-I hate the phone
#198 Facebook providing a saftey net for students to check us out and find out we are not crazy and therefore being willing to trust us.
#199 Supporters who are willing to buy food for student outreaches.
#200 Lecrae and his sold out songs.