After Easter: Thursday
Know the Scriptures
|||| Passion Week has come to a close — Christ is risen from the dead! You’ve celebrated His triumph, sang all the songs, coordinated the bright colored outfits and brought your family along for Sunday worship services. But what now? How does the most miraculous day in history affect the rest of your regular, boring life? Every day this week, I’ll be giving a short encouragement on ways to epitomize the Resurrection and embody walking with Jesus. New life is just the beginning. There is so much more God has for you after Easter. ||||
1. Maps
I don’t know about you, but I love maps. Always have.
Seriously. Hanging in my office is a full map of Middle-earth from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings mythos. It has all the details of rivers and mountain ranges and topographical milestones that mark the adventures of the characters in the books. Talking about his creation of that epic story, Tolkien said, “I wisely started with a map.”1
Life with Jesus is the true adventure. It’s an endless journey with twists and sharp corners and stunning vistas and thick cedar forests hedged by bramble bushes. There are wonderful moments where God’s plans and power are clear and obvious. Typically, however, we only get to see a step or two ahead on the road He has us pounding our feet. That means watching our feet is pretty important.
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.— Psalm 119:105
The Word of God is our light, our illumination, our source of clarity. And the closer we keep the Word to us, the easier the next couple steps will be. Regardless of our opinions or proclivities, God’s ideas are the right ideas. He is the arbiter of reality and morality, and all truth flows from Him. As Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). Scripture is our roadmap, which means not paying attention to it, or to the road we’re on, can get us quite lost.
2. A Drive Through the Mountains
Years ago, my friend and I were driving through the canyons east of our town. We were on a day trip to do some work for his dad’s business in the area, going from location to location, collecting from store owners and fixing equipment. The hours grew long and finally we finished up with a mind to head back home.
Once on the road, our talk turned to a hundred things: music we were writing, bands we enjoyed, high school memories, cringey Jim Gaffigan impressions. Good conversation has a way of carrying you farther than your feet ever could. And as we drove on with the sun getting lower, that is exactly what happened. At a certain point, maybe 30 minutes into our drive, I realized that though we needed to be headed west toward home, the sun was low and to our left. We were actually heading north.
I turned to my friend and said, “hey man, I think we’re going the wrong way.” He slowly looked around in half-doubt and mumbled, “no…no, we’re south. We’re south of where we should be.” A minute or two more of driving and we passed a sing welcoming us to the next county — the one north of us. Finally, we turned around and backtracked our route to the highway we needed to return to civilization. We laughed about how easily distracted we were and how quickly we got lost. But we had added over an hour to our trip that could have been avoided — had we been paying attention.
Ignoring the road we are on is dangerous and can get us lost.
3. Re-Direction
In his letter to Timothy, Paul says this about the value of the Scriptures:
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
— 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Following Jesus means we need correction; sometimes, course-correction. We can think we’re going the right way, but it’s end is the way of death (Proverbs 14:12). In the end we’re just veering farther into the forest, not knowing where we’re going and making it harder and longer to trek our way back to civilization. Sometimes we need to be humble enough to admit we don’t know everything; to admit we’re wrong.
The Scriptures provide re-direction when the road of life gets us lost.
Is there an area of your life where you’re going the wrong way? There is a map for you in God’s Word. Study it, put it into practice; chart it’s highways and mountain peaks and low, peaceful valleys. The more of God’s truth you get inside of you, the easier it will be to combat deception with divine wisdom whenever it springs up. The new life we have in Jesus changes everything; we don’t have to be lost anymore! The Bible gives us a roadmap for the odd turns and misdirections of life.
What’s your plan for direction today?
Put it into Practice:
Today, keep reading your Bible. What stands out to you about the passage you read? What challenges your worldview? Write down your questions, describe your experience and pray for God to reveal more truth to you.
Sit down for five minutes. Think for a moment: what are some ideas you previously held which you learned were wrong? How has Jesus changed your mind about things you used to find acceptable?
Listen to this podcast episode on the Bible:
J.R.R. Tolkien (2014). The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p.177.