Responding to God’s Word: Part 3 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

2 Peter 1:12-15

Transcript

Good morning. As you head into this day, I know you want to have the best day possible, and I’m here to tell you the best days are the days that God is at the center of.

There’s no better way to put God at the center of your day than to start your day by listening to Him, and we do that by simply opening the Bible, what we call God’s word, and letting Him speak to us.

The best way to do it is to pick a section of the Bible and read a chapter each day or a little bit and then think about, OK, what is God saying to me? Talk to God and say, how do you want to shape my life through this? And then respond to Him when you have that sense of what He’s saying to you. Interact with Him about it. Make some commitments about things you’re going to do today in response to that, or something you’re going to change about how you interact with people.

God wants to be right there in your day today.

So let’s read a little bit of his word, the Bible, and listen to him right now. We’re talking all this week about responding to God’s word. Yesterday we read that verse where the apostle Peter said in 2 Peter chapter 1 in the Bible – We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty.

He goes on then to tell the story what he means by that, and he refers back to an experience that’s described in each one of the four Gospels, the four biographies of Jesus’ life in the Bible, called the transfiguration – a time when Jesus took them up on a mountain and began to pray, and it was as if his humanity was peeled back and they saw him in his glory as God the Son.

This is what Peter says. We were eyewitnesses of His Majesty, for when He received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain.

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What does Peter say?

When we write these things about Jesus’ life, what motivates us to write about them is that we ourselves were eyewitnesses, and what we saw was that Jesus is who He said He was. God the Father Himself spoke to us as Jesus was transfigured into that brilliant glory.

And God the Father said, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. We heard it. We know it happened. We were there with Him on the holy mountain, and what the Bible does, as Peter emphasizes here, is it focuses us on Jesus.

The whole Bible points towards Jesus.

Now maybe you think, well, isn’t the Old Testament the things that happened before Jesus came? Yes.

But do you realize that throughout the Old Testament, from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of it, every book of the Old Testament is in some way pointing forward to the time when Christ would come, some of them with specific prophecies, some of them with things that are symbolic of what Christ would do for us when He came.

So if you want to grow in your walk with God and grow to know God, focus on Jesus.

As you read the Bible each day, ask yourself the question, what does this passage reveal to me about Jesus? How does it exalt Jesus? What does it show me about Him, about what He’s done for us, about what He wants to do in my life, about how I should relate to Him, about what needs to change in my life as I honor Him, as you learn to focus on Jesus in your study of God’s word.

What’s going to happen in your living of your life? It’s also going to point people to Jesus. Put Him at the center of everything, and you will find yourself exactly where God wants you to be in life.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

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