Can The Bible Guide My Life Specifically Every Day?
When the search team asked if I had any hobby horses (things I really like to talk about), I said yes: Textual Criticism. And yet they still moved forward…
I finally had a chance to trot that pony out for a few minutes Sunday when we looked at John 7:53-8:11. I tried to make the case that this passage, almost more than any other in the Bible, builds our confidence and trust in the Bible. (For more links and articles about this specific passage, see the notes at the bottom of the sermon page on Valley View’s website.)
Not only can we trust that our Bible is accurate, but we can also trust that it is “living and active.” One person in the congregation Sunday, that I hadn’t seen in probably twenty years, was our own Lynn Mitchell. Lynn served as Children’s Minister in the early 90s while Eddie Lee took a break to focus on raising her own children. Lynn was in town attending Betty Fluhr’s funeral. While there we talked about her ministry journey. I shared that when she announced she was leaving Valley View to go to a church in Arkansas, I thought, “Why would anyone choose to leave Louisville to go to Arkansas? No way I’d ever want to move there!” That’s the first of two times I’ve said “I’d never move there” and then ended up moving there. The other was Phoenix. Be careful when you say “I’ll never live _____.”
The Right Verse at the Right Time
Lynn then shared how God confirmed her call to Arkansas. She had interviewed at a church in Russellville, and one of the last questions they asked her was, “Do you think you can live in a small town?” They wanted to make sure she had really wrestled with that question. Lynn had seen God’s hand direct her to her previous churches, and so she wanted to hear clearly from Him about this church. In fact, she specifically asked God to give her a verse to make it clear He was directing her to this church. After the interview, she was sitting in the church office, praying for a verse, and she turned to see a verse-a-day calendar sitting on the desk. She flipped to her birthday and here was the verse she found: “Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.” (Genesis 19:20 NIV)
God’s Word is Living and Active
Our Bibles can be trusted, and you can be sure that God will speak to you each and every day through His Word. As you read His Word each day, come with the expectation that He will guide you specifically. Maybe it won’t be as dramatic and obvious as the above story, but we should expect to hear from Him through his Word, even in the specific moments of our daily lives. God’s Word is living and active! It is what changes lives!
Be praying for God to guide you to those that need to be in church this Easter Sunday. You never know how He might already be at work in the life of that person he puts on your heart. Be praying for God to continue to use Valley View to reach PRP, Valley Station, and all of Southwest Louisville!