Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

God the Father’s Word

2 Timothy 3v16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness ….”

As we continue in our “Statement of Faith”, our third statement is, “We believe in … The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God – fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.”

Our God has not just created the world and left us to it. He has arranged for us to have a letter or manual that enables us to connect with him, and know how to live as his creation. I notice the following:

  • Firstly, if we love God, we will want to hear his voice.  We will want to read and hear what he has to say in his “Word”. He has so much to tell us about who he is, what he has done and his purpose for us! Why wouldn’t we want to know? As Jesus says “He who has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 13v43). The on-going challenge is for us to find the ways which best connect us with God’s Word – and those ways may change in different seasons of our lives. It may be listening, reading or watching. It may be reading it alone or with others. It may be listening to it just as it is, or with some commentary and reflection. What works for you right now?
  • Secondly, this is not the only way that God speaks to us, but it is the “supreme authority”. What we think we hear in other ways, we measure against what he says in his Word.
  • Finally, the Word is for “our faith and conduct”. It is not academic, but practical. It is meant to impact both how we think about things and what we do. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus defines the “wise builder” as the one who, “hears these words of mine and puts them into practice.” (Matthew 7v24). We need to apply what we read to our own lives and be obedient to it. This is only possible by the Holy Spirit working in us.

May the Lord fill us with a love for Him and His Word. And fill Let’s keep the whole story of God as revealed in the Scriptures in mind. There is a past, a present and a future. They all lie in God’s hands and he is both loving and sovereign. There is therefore grace for the past and hope for the future.

With love and blessing,

Roland