Silas
Beloved of All
Your heart for the Word of God is evident and I join you in thanking the Father for what He has given us in the Scriptures.
We thank Him that the Scriptures are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, and that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Jesus Himself treated the Scriptures as authoritative and unbreakable, saying that everything written about Him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled, and then He opened the minds of His disciples to understand them. Heaven and earth will pass away but His words will never pass away. The words of the Lord are flawless like silver refined in a furnace, and the grass withers and the flower falls but the Word of our God stands forever. That Word was proclaimed to us, and we do well to pay attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place, knowing that no prophecy of Scripture came by the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
I pray with you that God would grant us wisdom and understanding in His ways. Wisdom is the principal thing, and with all our getting we are to get understanding. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. We are called to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding, and to write mercy and truth on the tablet of our heart, and then we find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. True understanding is not found by casual reading but by seeking it as treasure, and the Lord Himself gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. By wisdom He founded the earth and by understanding He established the heavens, and by that same wisdom and understanding He builds and establishes our lives and our homes. Understanding is a wellspring of life to the one who has it, and its ways are pleasantness and its paths are peace.
We also thank God that He has not only breathed out all Scripture but has kept it pure and preserved it through the ages. Not a stroke of the pen of His Law will fail, and what He has promised He will do, for God is not a man that He should lie or change His mind. He cannot lie, and by two unchangeable things we who have fled for refuge have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. Because His understanding is infinite and ours is finite, we do not challenge what He has said but submit to it. If there seems to be a contradiction, the fault is not with His perfect Word but with our limited understanding, for the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, and it gives understanding to the simple and light to those in darkness.
There is a difference between believing with the mind and believing with the heart, and what we believe in the heart changes how we live. The result of believing what God has said is joy and peace, and then we abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our faith is not founded on feelings, which change from day to day, but on the unchanging fact that God has spoken. His Word does not change. When the Spirit of God illuminates a passage and opens our minds to understand it, it becomes sweet to us and we love His law and hate every false way. That same Word calls us to unity, that we be of the same mind and judgment according to Christ Jesus, with one voice glorifying the Father, and it gives us perseverance and encouragement so that we have hope.
May the Lord make us diligent workers who handle the Word of truth accurately, who not only hear it but do it, who believe it with the heart and obey it. May He fill you with all joy and peace in believing, and with the peace that passes all understanding as you trust His faithful and enduring Word in Jesus name.
We thank Him that the Scriptures are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, and that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Jesus Himself treated the Scriptures as authoritative and unbreakable, saying that everything written about Him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled, and then He opened the minds of His disciples to understand them. Heaven and earth will pass away but His words will never pass away. The words of the Lord are flawless like silver refined in a furnace, and the grass withers and the flower falls but the Word of our God stands forever. That Word was proclaimed to us, and we do well to pay attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place, knowing that no prophecy of Scripture came by the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
I pray with you that God would grant us wisdom and understanding in His ways. Wisdom is the principal thing, and with all our getting we are to get understanding. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. We are called to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on our own understanding, and to write mercy and truth on the tablet of our heart, and then we find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. True understanding is not found by casual reading but by seeking it as treasure, and the Lord Himself gives wisdom, and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. By wisdom He founded the earth and by understanding He established the heavens, and by that same wisdom and understanding He builds and establishes our lives and our homes. Understanding is a wellspring of life to the one who has it, and its ways are pleasantness and its paths are peace.
We also thank God that He has not only breathed out all Scripture but has kept it pure and preserved it through the ages. Not a stroke of the pen of His Law will fail, and what He has promised He will do, for God is not a man that He should lie or change His mind. He cannot lie, and by two unchangeable things we who have fled for refuge have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. Because His understanding is infinite and ours is finite, we do not challenge what He has said but submit to it. If there seems to be a contradiction, the fault is not with His perfect Word but with our limited understanding, for the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, and it gives understanding to the simple and light to those in darkness.
There is a difference between believing with the mind and believing with the heart, and what we believe in the heart changes how we live. The result of believing what God has said is joy and peace, and then we abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our faith is not founded on feelings, which change from day to day, but on the unchanging fact that God has spoken. His Word does not change. When the Spirit of God illuminates a passage and opens our minds to understand it, it becomes sweet to us and we love His law and hate every false way. That same Word calls us to unity, that we be of the same mind and judgment according to Christ Jesus, with one voice glorifying the Father, and it gives us perseverance and encouragement so that we have hope.
May the Lord make us diligent workers who handle the Word of truth accurately, who not only hear it but do it, who believe it with the heart and obey it. May He fill you with all joy and peace in believing, and with the peace that passes all understanding as you trust His faithful and enduring Word in Jesus name.
