April 29

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-3, 14)

Today I listened to a women’s ministry podcast by Mary Haberkorn entitled, “Living the Word in a Distracted World” which I heartily recommend * Mary, who has three boys under the age of five years, spoke about distractions to Bible study, including technology. I appreciated her talk after meditating on the power and majesty of God’s voice last night. This evening as I write this blog post for tomorrow, I am, once again, caught up with the unique glory of God and his word, which is incomparable to all other language or communication, because God is incomparable with anyone or anything else. He alone is the Creator, and we are his creatures. We try to imitate God and attempt to follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit. We fail, but we do not give up. Knowledge is knowing that we cannot entirely obey Jesus. Wisdom is continuing to press on in our sanctification because Christ is the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth.

God is his Word. Although Jesus became the Word in the flesh, he was also the Word in Spirit. Unlike us, his flesh was not his failing but our salvation. Peter wrote this about us, “’All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” (1 Peter 1:24-25) Since God is his word and his word remains forever, Jesus never faded or withered. He willingly gave up his life in the flesh that we can have spiritual life in him. Nothing distracted him when he ministered and made the journey to Jerusalem and his crucifixion.

When we worship the Lord today at your church will you be focused or distracted? It’s easy to say that I will put my phone on silent and airplane mode so that other notifications won’t compete with the pastor. But it’s much harder to control my thoughts, to be so invested in worship that I take notes either on my phone or in the bulletin. (This is recommended by Mary Haberkorn and a consistent practice of mine, to stay focused.) Where will your mind and heart be today? If we meditate on the glory, grace, and truth of God in his Word every Sunday from now until the day we die in this body, will we even scratch the surface of his majesty? Isn’t it wise to use our Sundays for their highest use? “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8)

* “Encourage” podcasts are available on iTunes or at encourage.pcacdm.org/podcast/