Deeper Still by phil mccallum

Press the arrow to listen to Michael W. Smith sing “Ancient Words” while reading today’s devotional about listening. Read more on how to journal.

Scripture
Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. Revelation 1:3

Observation
I rarely read the Bible. I prefer to listen to the Bible being read with my ears more that taking it in off of the page with my eyes. I like listening better than reading the Scriptures silently to myself. With audio Bibles, it is so easy to have my own personal reader. Every morning I visit http://m.enewhope.org/bible on my iPhone and listen to the day’s readings.

The Bible was meant to be read aloud. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Only since 1450 with the printing press has anyone had a chance to get their hands on a personal copy of the Bible. In fact, only in the past 150 years or so has the Bible been cheap enough for the average family to own one. To read the Bible, one had to go to church or a house gathering where a copy of the Bible was kept to be read aloud.

The Bible was meant to be heard, because words are living things that enter the ears and take over the hearer. Listening to the Bible being read aloud is like a deep soaking rain. Our minds can process faster than the reader can speak.  The extra brain space gives our minds room for imagination. The Holy Spirit also has elbow room to be at work. If God spoke and it was so, then there is something miraculous about Bible promises echoing in our ears. New life is created. Faith arises.

Application
The challenge is to be hear the word and to take it to heart. This is what comes to the ears moving deeper. Being read to is sometimes tedious. The mind wanders. This is where meditation can kick in. Reflecting on the word is what fills in the gaps and changes the heart.

Prayer
Father, often I find I read and forget. I want to be one who reads and remembers because the meaning has saturated me. I ask today, keep the word in my heart safe by causing it too grow with words so deep that can never be extracted. Amen.

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Scripture
Then I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll and read it. But one of the twenty-four elders said to me, “Stop weeping! Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David’s throne, has won the victory. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals.” Revelation 5:4-5

Observation
It is odd to think of someone crying because they could not understand the Bible, but that is exactly what is taking place in this scripture. John has seen a locked book of God’s revelation. He wants so much to know what is on God’s heart that he bursts into tears because it cannot be understood. It is not just that the book is encrypted in bizzare symbols. There is more. No one is worthy to touch the book so significant is its message. So John weeps before unread paragraphs wanting to know what is on God’s mind.

I met Mrs. Smith in her 79th year. Her daughter had come to know Christ in our church and soon her mother followed. With her thick Scottish accent rolling like fog over Edinburgh, Catherlien Smith soon followed her daughter in discovering the grace and mercy of Christ. But about the same time Jesus found Catherlein, macular degeneration caught up with her eyesight. Her daughter was able to find a Bible with print the size of headlines. Armed with a magnifying glass befitting Sherlock Holmes, Catherlien would struggle word by word to read the scriptures. In my mind is an exposed image of her laborious Bible reading as she hunched with her magnifying glass and brilliant lamp over the book. She prayed regularly for sight that never came. But somehow I think the encroaching blindness opened her eyes, for she savored every word and took them deeply to heart. Our conversations together were exclusively about her discoveries in the Bible and her endless questions. She always wanted to know more and wished she had started learning sooner. She died with such peace in her 88th year.

Application
I want the kind of Bible hunger that brings tears to my eyes for more revelation. There is so much to understand that a first read will never reveal. In fact multiple readings will not unlock the secrets either. It is only when I read the Bible with him who is worthy to unlock the seals that I have any hope of discovering what is sealed in the pages of the book. Never read the Bible without Jesus, for this book stands alone among volumes as the only book we do not read because the Bible reads us.

Prayer
Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, I stand on the verge of a new year of again reading the Bible through. I know so little. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, this will be the 20th year of reading the Bible completely through. But I’ve only just started at the edges. Though my initial curiosity is satiated, take me deeper into soul hunger that will bring your gracious hand to turn the page and highlight words that only my spirit can read. Jesus, read the Bible to me. Amen.

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Scripture

We ourselves heard that voice from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. 2 Peter 1:18-19

This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles. 1 Peter 3:1-2

Observation
Yesterday I stood in front of an ancient Torah scroll at a Jewish Synagogue hidden in the basement of the US Air Force Academy Chapel. The scroll was several centuries old. Hand-lettered vellum showed the endless rows of Hebrew consonants without word spacings, punctuation or even chapter and verse numbers. I explained to the person with me that this was the Bible of the early Church. The Old Testament was the Bible that Peter preached from and his would have looked very much like the one my eyes were scanning.

After not only walking with Jesus but seeing for a few seconds on earth how Jesus appears now in heaven, Peter nevertheless pointed early Christians back to the Bible. In fact Peter knew as he wrote these words that he was soon to die. Second Peter is in essence his last will and testament. He will not be there to guide the fledgling churches. So what instruction does he give? Simple: read the Bible.

What should happen as we read the Bible? Our minds should first be stimulated to think better thoughts. Without the Bible we spiral downward into trivia, gossip, grumbling, or even worse the news. But with the Scriptures our minds will spark with wholesome thoughts that have a life of their own because they originate in God. We also read the Bible secondly to refresh our minds. The Bible is not a book we can simply say we’ve read before because reading it is not enough. Are we doing what it says? We read and re-read the Bible not always to learn new things but to remember what we’ve forgotten to do.

Application
Christians gathering together to talk about how their lives will be different because of what they have read is the most significant thing we can do this side of seeing Jesus with our own eyes. Everything flows out of that.

Prayer
Father, I am listening. Amen.

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I hiked up into the Ko’olau Range just behind Honolulu and saw this spectacular view…another one of my favorite places.

Scripture

The shepherds of my people have lost their senses.
They no longer seek wisdom from the Lord.
Therefore, they fail completely,
and their flocks are scattered. Jeremiah 10:21

Observation

I sat across the desk from one of the most astute observers of Christianity in America. On a shelf were rows of books he has authored about vital ministry. But in front of me I saw the face of a man sad beyond speaking. With a sigh he pushed an email printout to me. It tabled the statistics of church growth in American denominations and by state. If the church were in business we would call it a recession. All churches are declining. Some were flat-lined. One boasted a few points gain, but as this seasoned observer noted, the birth rate alone was twice their growth factor, so that denomination too was moving south.

Why are denominational numbers declining? We could call in the spin doctors, but the answer is here in the Bible. Shepherds lose their flocks when they no longer seek wisdom from the Lord. Sheep live where the pasture is green. If pastors are without the green pasture that comes from daily time in God’s word they will soon lose their sheep.

About 150 years ago professors taught young pastors to question the Bible instead of letting the Bible ask questions of them. Contemporary pastors care caught in the spin cycle of busyness. Seventy percent of pastors interviewed claimed that the only time they spent Bible reading was in preparation of their Sunday sermon. If the scripture has not first fed the preacher how can he in turn feed the sheep?

It is interesting that Jesus definition of love given to Peter is the faithfulness of a shepherd to feed the sheep. We need to come back to the heart of love for Christ. We need to call pastors back to more than Bible reading, but into a place where they allow the scriptures to read them.

Application

John Wesley said, “I am a spirit come from God and returning to God… I want to know one thing, the way to heaven… God Himself has condescended to teach me the way… He has written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri (a man of one book). Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone. Only God is here. In His presence I open, I read His book; for this end, to find the way to Heaven.”

Prayer

Father, today I ask that you would call pastors back to the place where Your voice is real. Let us read your word as more than academic exercise but as heart application. Let there be many raised up calling your leaders back to the word. And if you need someone to speak to your shepherds then Lord use me.

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Scripture
“Look, I have come to do your will, O God–as is written about me in the scriptures.” Hebrews 10:7

Observation
The Bible is not just a book about God, it is also a book about me. When Jesus went to his home church and read the words from Isaiah he rolled up the scroll and said, “Hear those words? Well you’re lookin’ at ‘em! Those words are about me.” It was almost as if the Bible were a script of a play and Jesus was the actor and that day he read his own lines. What was true for Jesus is also true for me. The Bible is the script for my life. How will these lines come to life in me? By my choice to come to the Bible open heart first. Jesus said as he held the scroll, “I have come to do your will O God.”

Application
And so today I present myself to the Lord today to do his will. There are blank pages before me that I don’t know how to fill. There are empty speech bubbles in the comic strip of my life that I don’t know how to use. So I do today what I know I can do: I stand in front of the Bible with a heart open to say, “Lord, here I am…available.”

Prayer
Father, show me the script for my life today. Help me to speak my lines for you.

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Press the arrow to listen to worship while you read today’s entry.

Mandisa God Speaking

Scripture
“But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS, AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME.” (Hebrews 3:13, 15)

Observation
What would happen if I used last week’s paper to forecast today’s weather?

After all isn’t it a weather report and isn’t it printed in a newspaper? Isn’t that enough?

Of course it isn’t. To know whether I need an umbrella or sunscreen I need today’s report. Conditions change from wipers to swimsuits depending on the current forecast.

What if I based my spiritual journey today on last week’s journal or even last month’s sermon? The word is true enough, but it might not be the word for today.

Application

If I am not in daily contact with the word I will be deceived. In fact if I am not in contact daily with growing believers who are also in the word I can get off track. I am liable to be deceived by degrees. I will be hardened slowly.

Prayer
Father, keep me daily in the word and in the company of those who hear you better than I do. Don’t let me be deceived. Amen.

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