Your Light | Original Painting

The poet David mentions how the Bible is a light guiding our way,

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

In contrast, there's a proverb that I clung to when I first started coming back to my faith, 

“But the way of the wicked is like total darkness. They have no idea what they are stumbling over.” ~ Provers 4:19

The Word of God is a guide, like a flashlight in the dark place, pointing out what needs our attention and revealing to us the will of God.

Even if you usually have nothing to do with Christianity, you could still read the Bible out of curiosity, just to see if it would speak to you. Find out for yourself and don’t let the people who claim to be Christians deter you by their behavior. 

This painting began in the sketchbook like many of my pieces do!

Because the Bible is not Christianity and while some Christians do center their lives around the teachings found in the Bible, no one is perfect and we all mess up.

“On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” ~ Matthew 9:12-13

Some Christians have never even read the Bible and so interactions with these kinds of people could lead to someone being turned off by the Christian religion and cause one not to be willing to read the Bible at all. Even as a Christian myself, for the longest time I didn’t want to call myself by that title and am still not totally comfortable with it because it categorizes me among a stereotype that doesn’t accurately reflect who I am. 

All humans aside, the Word of God is a perfect guide and signpost, making wise the simple and giving understanding,

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” ~ Psalm 19:7 

Psalms 19 is one of my favorites when it comes to explaining the word of God! I actually painted a piece illustrating this whole chapter! Check it out Here! 

The Bible in a nutshell is the story of Jesus’ life on Earth, it includes his teachings and many prophecies foretelling his coming. It is a book of the history which is full of poetry, prophecies and letters. Even some pretty hot and sexy poetry in the Song of Solomon. There are proverbs and sayings of wisdom, as well as letters of instruction to the early churches which talk about many of the common things that people still face today.

As mentioned in my podcast about how to read the Bible, you don't really read it like a regular ol’ book from start to finish, it’s not really in order.

I also mention how it seems that the Bible is old-fashioned and outdated as many claim, however I heard recently someone say that we could all benefit from some old fashioned morals. 

The truth is, righteousness and godliness go beyond time and space. If it was righteous then, it would remain righteous now. 

However the Bible is not really a book of rules and morals either. It’s main message isn’t how to live a good life or be a “good” person. Perhaps that’s why Christians are so misunderstood when onlookers see their behavior and question, “What good has Christianity done for you? You’re no different than the rest of us.” 

While it is expected that one turning their life over to God would appear differently, we are still human and God has to start with us somewhere, most likely in the middle of our mess. And all too often, myself included, one might give their life to God one day and forget about returning to that surrender the next. Living in God is a daily surrender of our lives to Him, our every moment. 

My favorite, and no doubt the most poetic way I’ve heard the Bible talked about, is that it is a love letter of the Divine to the human!

It’s a road map for how to get closer to God. One would expect the closer they get to God, the more like God they appear. So it also talks about what God is like. It's quite beautiful. One of the main characteristics being Steadfast Love. 

It also often talks about God’s Just nature. While God is merciful, He is also Pure and Holy. This then causes us to have a need for such purity in order to dwell with God and in His Presence. As mentioned, being humans we are incapable of such perfection. That’s where Christ Jesus comes in as a perfect substitute for our imperfections. We then live out every day as He commanded, “Abide in Me.”

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ ” ~John 8:12

Jesus also said, “You are the light of the world.” ~Matthew 5:14a

I love that even though it’s such an old book, it still magically touches on all the subjects we still face today. It’s talking about things that really matter! There are teachings on idols and distractions which we could apply to phone-use or status, or symbolic parables which could apply to many things we chase after nowadays, like the cliche of a fancy car (and those didn’t exist thousands of years ago). But more than that, it touches on the subjects that really matter! Love, humility, trust, faith. Things that when taken care of, suddenly the car and phone are no longer even important!

It doesn't have to mention something about the current political state of the world to have an effect on our world. If it really is Living and Active, then God is behind it! 

When we open the ears of our hearts, we allow those words to touch us in such a way that we could not deny! Indeed we are touched by God!

Our spirit translates those insights for the issues we have active in our world today. 

I might not be in a place to decipher and create that understanding for others, but I know I do have my “Place” and a peace in my own understanding of God’s words to me. 

If you have any questions or are curious about how the Bible pertains to certain things going on in our world, someone out there is talking about it. It might be worth researching.

Inerrancy is something worth researching when it comes to the Bible too, and one day I hope to compile my own research on this topic. This topic of “being free from error or mistakes” can be studied in depth (if that is one of your concerns: that the Bible has been tampered with or changed). As I mentioned in my podcast there are thousands of manuscripts of the Bible which people used to create our English version and there are no hidden secrets about these manuscripts, so anyone can easily learn about the inerrancy of the Bible.

God’s Word is like a light because to lights up the way to God, it lights up the darkness of our heart, and it fills us with love and light in our being when we obey what God says!

Listen to this episode of my new podcast if you're interested in hearing more about how to read the Bible.