As It Is Written

 Last week I wrote (rewrote) history  (Scripture). Sort of!  I intended it to be fiction and a fun exercise in thinking about how our faith being viewed by others could have an impact. 

But remember, that was fiction,  I would not want anyone to come across it and assume it was factual. What WAS factual was the Scripture references. 

THAT is what is important to take away. 

📖  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.    2 Timothy 3:16-17

Throughout the ages there have been those who have tried to rewrite Scripture to fit their own agenda and narrative.

📖 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Matthew 7:15-20

In the book of Luke Jesus was reading Scripture and those in his home town were pleased. Until He began to explain...He came as a fulfillment of that very Scripture.. Here He was THE living breathing Scripture.  He also explained that in scripture/history....God cared for all people, not JUST the chosen, or the "religious" and then they became incensed. 

📖    Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.  He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,  and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:  

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.  He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”  “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”  All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff.  But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. Luke 4:14-30

Jesus was explaining the truth of the Scriptures and it didn't match with how they had been teaching them, how they wanted them to be.

Jesus IS the TRUTH.

📖  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

He wasn't changing or redirecting Scripture to fit His purpose. His purpose is to show us the truth. 

📖  For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.  John 6:38

The truth in God's word. 

📖 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4

We are to read it as God wants, to hear what He intends for us. The amazing thing about the Word is that it "speaks" to us. Not by being different every time we read it, but by changing us, making us more aware, more inline with what He wants.

📖   And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, Philippians 1:9-10

WE are different every time we read it!

It is God's conversation with us. We want to "hear" it as He intends, not as we want it to be.

🙏🏼📖 For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every famil in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:14-21♥️