God's Good News

Although sometimes missing one I have been a daily reader of the blessed word of God for over 43 years.

I started with The Jerusalem Bible which is a Catholic translation, complete with those interesting books of Judith,Tobit and Ecclesiasticus (and having a nice "Nihil Obstat" and "Imprimatur" from guys named Lionel Swain S.T.L., L.S.S and John Cardinal Heenan). The book was hard covered, two and a half inches thick and I carried it to all those early prayer meetings which was great because after putting that heavy thing down my arms just flew up so easy. Perhaps it has a special place in my heart because it was my first bible and the first time my brain and heart had grappled with so many different revelations. I just loved the language in that translation.

On my 25th birthday Jackie gave me a soft cover bible with a nice leather zip up cover. This was The New American Bible (NAB) , another Catholic translation and this one has a nice in color full page photo of Pope Paul IV up front (plus 3 Nihil Obstat's and Imprimatur's !!!)  It has forms up front for our marriage records, genealogy for the husband and wife sides and records for children (sorry Missy and Becky but somehow we stopped filling in after Carrie). This was my work horse bible for many years.

Tapped to the inside front cover is a prayer for deliverance from demons by Derek Prince and in the back cover are scriptural references on various subjects.  -  Plan of Salvation, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, John 1:12, Revelation 3:20:  God's order for the Christian, 2 Peter 1: 3-7:  God's ultimate purpose in Christ, Ephesians 1: 7-10, Colossians 1: 15-20:  Using the word of God to resist Satan, John 1: 1-5, Luke 4, Ephesians 6: 10-16, 1 John 4-5. These and others listed there were the fruit of many Friday and Saturday night family prayer meetings (when you go to battle you need to bring your sword and you should also know how to use it!)

After that one wore out I switched to The New American Standard (NAS) and to The Ryrie Study Bible which is a NAS having commentaries from Dr. Ryrie. That is the one sitting on my lamp table as I write. It does not have a picture of either a pope or of Dr. Ryrie but it is the one that I almost always quote from when writing these blog posts.

Over the years I have loved reading from both the Old and the New Testaments. I have heard it said that we are not Old Testament Christians but rather New Testaments Christians and frankly, that is just stupid. The Old points to the New, the New helps reveal the Old, together they give a more complete picture of Who our God is and what His plan is for us. While it is true that we are now not bound by certain national, dietary and ceremonial restrictions for the Jewish people even those things are instructive when we come before our great Lord and King seeking His wisdom.

When I was younger I tried using the thru the bible in a year plans but those became a burden. My suggestion for any newbies that are interested is to first commit to carve out at least a few minutes daily to read the Word. It is not quantity by quality that you should be looking for. Pray before you begin, asking God to give you wisdom and insight, and then afterwards spend a moment contemplating about what you just read. If you honor God with your time He will honor you with His wisdom. That is what I still do and it has always borne fruit.

Also when I was younger I would read The Living Bible, also known as The Message. The Living Bible is a paraphrase which was meant to help the modern person more easily get the drift of what the Word was saying. I think it is a terrific tool, especially for someone just getting started. Obviously we do not want to establish doctrine using a paraphrase but sometimes looking at a passage from a different angle can flip a switch in our brain and we go, 'Oh yeah, now I get it'. For those that worry that perhaps one is wasting valuable time reading a paraphrase instead of the real deal I have this thought to give you from someone who is currently 66 years old. Our walk with the Lord is a marathon, not a sprint. There will be plenty of time for both.

The inspiration for this post came in the middle of last night. I felt that I should share a passage from The Living Bible and the thought came very clearly - give them Romans 1. So here it is, verses 1-7, then verses 15-32 plus the start of Romans 2: verses 1-4.

Dear friends in Rome: This letter is from Paul, Jesus Christ's slave, chosen to be a missionary, and sent out to preach God's Good News. This Good News was promised long ago by God's prophets in the Old Testament. It is the Good News about his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who came as a human baby, born into King Davids's royal family line; and by being raised from the dead he was proved to be the mighty Son of God, with the holy nature of God himself.

And now, through Christ, all the kindness of God has been poured out upon us undeserving sinners; and now he is sending us out around the world to tell all people everywhere the great things God has done for them, so that they, too, will believe and obey him.

And you, dear friends in Rome, are among those he dearly loves; you, too, are invited by Jesus Christ to be God's very own - yes, his holy people. May all God's mercies and peace be yours from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord.

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is God's powerful method of bringing all who believe it to heaven. This message was preached first to the Jews alone, but now everyone is invited to come to God in this same way. This Good News tells us that God makes us ready for heaven - makes us right in God's sight - when we put our faith and trust in Christ to save us. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scripture says it, "The man who finds life will find it through trusting God."

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, evil men who push away the truth from them. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively; God has put this knowledge in their hearts. Since earliest times men have seen the earth and sky and all God made, and have known of his existence and great eternal power. So they will have no excuse (when they stand before God at Judgment Day).

Yes, they knew about him all right, but they would't admit it or worship him or even thank him for all his daily care. And after awhile they began to think up silly ideas of what God was like and what he wanted then to do. The result was that their foolish minds became dark and confused. Claiming themselves to be wise without God, they became utter fools instead. And then, instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they took wood and stone and made idols for themselves, carving them to look like mere birds and animals and snakes and puny men.

So God let them go ahead into every sort of sex sin, and do whatever they wanted to - yes, vile and sinful things with each other's bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they prayed to the things God made, but wouldn't obey the blessed God who made those things.

That is why God let go of them and let them do all these evil things, so that even their women turned against God's natural plan for them and indulged in sex sin with each other. And the men, instead of having a normal sex relationship with women, burned with lust for each other, men doing shameful things with other men and, as a result, getting paid within their own souls with the penalty they so richly deserved.

So it was that when they gave God up and would not even acknowledge him, God gave the up to doing everything their evil minds could think of. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness and sin, of greed and hate, envy, murder, fighting, lying, bitterness, and gossip. They were backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud braggarts, always thinking of new ways of sinning and continually being disobedient to their parents. They tried to misunderstand, broke their promises, and were heartless - without pity. They were fully aware of God's death penalty for these crimes, yet they went right ahead and did them anyway, and encouraged others to do them, too.

Well, you may be saying, "what terrible people you have been talking about!" But wait a minute! You are just as bad. When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are talking about yourselves, for you do these very same things. And we know that God, in justice, will punish anyone who does such things as these. Do you think that God will judge and condemn others for doing them and overlook you when you do them too? Don't you realize how patient he is being with you? Or don't you care? Can't you see that he has been waiting all this time without punishing you, to give you time to turn from your sin? His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

What power are in these words even they are from a paraphrase. God's Good News, that all have sinned but God in His love and mercy has given us His Son Jesus to be our Lord and Savior and Deliverer, to set free from sin and bondage and death all who would trust and surrender their lives to Him.