Responding to God’s Word: Part 4 — 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. We’re talking all this week about responding to God’s word, the Bible, and the difference that makes in our lives and how it shapes us and how we should come to it. We’re looking all week at a passage of Scripture in the New Testament in the book of 2 Peter chapter 1.

And Peter says, I’m going to keep on reminding you of the things that I’m teaching you, and that’s how we should come to God’s word, constantly recognizing we need to be reminded of these things. We want to shape our minds and our lives with the truths that are here.

We saw that Peter said these things that are written in here about Jesus, they’re not myths. We ourselves who wrote them down were eye witnesses. We were there with Him. And then he described this amazing experience that we call the transfiguration of Jesus.

When Jesus took some of them up on a mountain, and as he was praying to God the Father, it was as if his humanity was peeled back and his glory as God the Son shone through, and the words from God the Father came to Peter and the others. This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Peter says, we ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain.

Well, he goes on in verse 19 to say, and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Well, Peter’s telling us pay attention to God’s word in your life. What kind of attention should we pay to it? Well, like you would to a lamp shining in a very dark place.

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Now you know, lamps are not that bright if it’s in the middle of the day, right? If you’re outside on a sunny day and there’s a lamp sitting there, you might not even notice that that lamp is shining cause there’s the brightness of the sun shining on the trees and the grass and the road and the flowers, the plants around you, the cars that are moving, people, that lamp’s light is so dim in that bright day.

But if it’s a pitch black night. That lamp is something very important to you, isn’t it? It’s your only source of light if you’ve ever been camping out in the dark and needed to go out at night for personal business. You want that torch or that lamp, whatever it is you’ve got – to let you see where you’re stepping and be careful where you go. And Peter says that’s how you should pay attention to God’s word.

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. ~ Psalm 119:105

As to a lamp shining in a dark place, because in your life in this fallen world and with your own fallen nature, dragging you away from the things that really matter in life, the things that really count, your relationships with the people around you and what God wants to do through you in those people’s lives, all of these things can get totally wiped out by the clamor of other things shining around us, right, and you can end up leaving God out of your life, and that’s the worst thing you could ever do in your life. It leads to disaster and you know in your heart, if that’s been happening in your life, don’t you, you sense a distance from God, you recognize, I haven’t even thought about God since last week, or I can’t even remember the last time I prayed on my own when I wasn’t praying in a required prayer setting like church or at a meal.

Are you leaving God out of your life, and do you sense that things are not right?

Well, the way to get things right again is to get your focus back on the lamp that shines in the dark place, and that lamp is the Word of God. Listen to it again. We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns, and that’s when Jesus Christ returns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Get your focus back on God’s Word and watch what God does in your life.

I’m John North.

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