Altitude with Attitude (Part 4) DEVOTION

The Danger Is Real

Don’t we know how much we need God’s Word? Yes, we know, but the danger is very real that we forget.

That’s one reason why God urges His people to use His Word. “Let the Word of Christ dwell in

you richly,” Paul urged in Colossians 3:16. The use of God’s Word is to be no “hit or miss”

affair, no “now you do it, now you don’t” kind of activity. That Word is to “dwell” in Christians.

It is to live in them, making its home in them. And this it is to do “richly.” The hearts and lives

of God’s people are to be wide open with room for that blessed Word. How is this to happen

except through regular in-depth use of the Word?

What God urges Christians to do, He repeats even more specifically to those He calls into
the ministry. Writing to his student and co-worker, Paul stressed the need for Timothy to be
“brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed” (1
Timothy 4:6). Timothy needed to be “brought up,” constantly nourished in God’s Word if he was
going to serve well as a minister. See what Paul was telling him. “To the Word,” he was
stressing, “keep on being fed by It. Don’t ever stop. You need that Word if you are going to
serve.”

We’d like to say that it isn’t so, but the danger is very real that this Book which so richly throughout

speaks to us about our Savior and which is God’s power to create and continue faith in that

Savior can be viewed as something for which we just don’t have the time.

Reviewing the dangers we face to our personal devotional life brings a renewed sense of

urgency to the prayer, “Teach me to love Thy sacred Word.”

The Need Is Real

Reviewing also our need for God’s sacred Word will lend urgency to that prayer. What

greater need can I have then my own salvation? The great Apostle Paul knew how real this need

was for him. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” he wrote and then confessed, “of

whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15). Paul was keenly aware of the depths of his sin, and by

the Spirit’s working, even more so of the greater depths of God’s forgiveness in Christ. He

marveled that the Son of God could love him and give Himself for him (Galatians 2:20). He

prayed that God would help Christians measure “the width and length and height and depth of

the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:18, 19). And he lived in the

Scriptures! Dare we do any less? Can anyone of us claim that he is not the worst of sinners? Can

any close his eyes to his constant need for assurance of God’s forgiveness? The news that “God

was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them,” is not just

something the world needs to hear from us (2 Corinthians 5:1 9). It is something that each one of

us desperately and regularly needs to hear for himself.

The Benefits Are Real

When we love and live in that Word, the people whom we serve will benefit. When we live in the Word, religion classes will be more than “Word o’ God” time which is held each day like all the other classes and which like them receives a grade on the report card. Instead, that hour becomes the highlight of the day and adds the necessary flavoring to the rest of the day. When we live in the Word, there will be devotions which live and personal examples which shine. There’ll be food for the people, the only food which can

nourish the soul. We complain about people’s indifference toward God’s Word and neglect of

His work. We criticize parents for not maintaining Christian homes and not exhibiting Christian

attitudes toward us and their children. Surely reasons abound for such indifference and neglect,

but let not us as God’s servants add to those reasons. When God’s servants burn with love in

their hearts for Christ and His precious Word, our people will know it. And the benefits will be

great.

Devotion to God's Word in a constant passion.  However Christ devotion to us help us because he gave the Holy Spirit to help us be devoted to all that Christ ask.