Procedure or satisfaction seems to be the crux of this problem I’m seeing. It’s not recognizing where the life is coming from. A large problem is my tendency to see importance without thinking things through. But this has been going on for a long time. I finally learned what the core problem is.

Part of it has surfaced again recently as I have turned to evangelical pastors on YouTube for teaching scripture. At least they are covering scripture and running their lives by what they learn in that study. It’s a real joy going through scripture verse by verse. That’s the way I always taught. Nothing else really works.

But I’m increasingly dissatisfied by the lack of functional content. Worse, I’ve come to see that (even in this procedure) large parts of the content delivered is mere human opinion. I know what the problem is, but I’m having trouble explaining it without triggering bad reactions in you.

Feeding on scripture effectively

This has been my focus far almost the entire fifty years in which I’ve been walking with the Lord. There is a real problem seldom recognized in looking at the Bible. It is seen subconsciously as an occult book with magical powers. I find it best expressed in John.

You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; John 5:39 RSV

There’s the fatal flaw right here. What Jesus is saying is that there is no eternal life in the scriptures. Hang on! The life is not in the book. The life is in the Author of the book. This is made clear in the next verse..

and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. John 5:40 RSV

The Bible bears witness, but the life is in the Lord. In fact, I continually make the point that you are wasting your time if you do not ask the Holy Spirit to show you what He wants you to learn today. Scripture bears witness, but we need life. That life comes through the anointing of the Holy Spirit as He converts the logos to rhema. And YES, you need to ask.

Procedure or satisfaction — Bible or Word?

It happened again this morning. I want to keep away from naming people. But this morning I was reading a post from a Substack site that is good enough so that I bought a subscription. After some well said advice about what is coming upon us, the closing line was “We’ve got to stay in the Word to survive.”

We’ve got to stay in the Word to survive

Yes, and Amen! However, the Word is a person not a book. We need to abide in the Word (Yeshua Messiah) by the power of the Holy Spirit to get through this mess which is rapidly becoming overwhelming. We need the Spirit to guide us to what He is saying to us today.

That does not happen consistently unless we ask Him to do that—every time we open the book. A major aspect of the walk of faith is this need to constantly ask the Lord for help. This is where our faith is “new every morning”. We do not get to rest on what we gathered yesterday. Yesterday’s stuff has already rotted into a memory which is no longer alive.

Our life is spent on gathering fresh food daily—or it should be. We can’t simply collect a few verses to get us going. We need to ask the Lord for food that will satisfy our needs for the day. He will be pleased that you asked.

The prime skill needed is hearing from the Lord

That happens with practice and a recognition of reality. The goal of our existence is an intimate relationship with our spouse, the Lord Jesus.
This relationship is the reason behind the need to always ask first. To proceed in faith starts with a fresh rhema from the Lord. If we don’t have that, we’re wandering around on our own recognizance. The only thing we can do on our own is get in trouble—sooner or later.