Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.

Psalm 119:18

For anyone who hears the word but does not carry it out is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror,

James 1:23

Today is July 31 and tomorrow I am heading to God’s house. For the month of August, the leadership in my church has given me the whole month to spend some time alone with God at his house. The fancy term for this is a Sabbatical. 

Thank you Kent City Baptist, 23 years of love and support. I can’t be more blessed!

Now, where is God’s house? Am I going to spend a month in a monk’s cloister, or hole-up at an old abandoned church in the Kentucky mountains?  No, no, no, God’s house is not that far away. It can be visited right in a person’s own home, or out in the woods, and it can be entered even sitting in the sun on the beach. But very few of us go to visit God’s house for any substantial length of time because the busyness of life keeps most of us away. Hence, the need for a Sabbatical.

God’s house is entered when a person simply sits for a while in the company of his word. Deuteronomy 32:47 says, “They are not just idle words for you – they are your life.” Psalm 1 says a man is blessed when he meditates on the word, letting God’s thoughts linger and mingle with your thoughts.  David says in Psalm 119  that God’s word is a delight (v16), a comfort (v76), sweet honey (v103) and a way to seek God’s face (v 58). 

When you enter into God’s house through his word he joins you, his heart is shared, and his Spirit brings light to your understanding. But how does this happen? Aren’t they just any old ordinary words?  Black and white scratches of ink on a piece of white paper? No, they are windows and mirrors.

WINDOWS

Listen to this statement by John Piper, “When we pray for God to show us his glory in the Scriptures (‘Open my eyes, that I may behold the wondrous things of your law,’ [Ps. 119:18]), we are not asking him to bypass the very words of the text. The psalmist prays, ‘Let me behold the wonders, out of your law‘….The reality revealed is the Lord himself. Preaching, (teaching and meditating), will aim for people to perceive and reverence that reality – the Lord himself. But the Lord reveals himself ‘by the word of the Lord.'”

And then he says this, “The preacher is not a psychic, or a medium, or a diviner. He does not conjure up divine reality for people to see apart from the words of Scripture. His work is ‘rightly handling the word of truth’ (2 Tim. 2:15). The link between divine reality and the hearts of his hearers is the wording of Scripture and how he handles it – in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

What Piper is getting at is that God has given us his word so we can both (1) know him and (2) know life as it really is. He opens up heaven as I look through the windows of Scripture, he uses inspired words to help us see his truth. I don’t make up truth, I see the truth. It is revealed to me.

I can remember when I was first in the former Soviet Union. My wife and I arrived at the Moscow airport and then we boarded a train that was to take us on a two-day trip through the Russian countryside to the town we were to live in for a year. When I first got on the train it was late at night and we closed the curtains so we could sleep. It was a long flight and we were exhausted. The next day as we woke up, I went to the window and pushed back the curtains and there before me was the vast countryside of Russia all sprawled out in vibrant colors that I could see through the clear glass of my rail-cab. 

I could see the sun shining bordered by the piercing azure blue of the morning sky. Out in the distance, old run-down shanties and dilapidated homes dotted rolling green hills. When we came closer to populated towns many reminded me of pictures I saw of America in the 1800’s: horses pulled families in wagons, old ladies wearing white head-scarfs could be seen lumbering around with canes, and men were smoking homemade cigarettes while sitting on their haunches. The opening of the curtains on the window brought to my eyes a whole new world I never could have imagined or believed existed on my own.

That is what scripture is like. It opens wide a new world. A world you could not imagine on your own.  But to see it, you must take the time for God through his word to show it to you. You cannot come into God’s house with preconceived ideas you have to let him show you his world through His Spirit. Too many Christians are making things up about God and his world, it is time to let God speak for himself.

MIRRORS

James 1:23-24 makes it plain, God has also given us the word to see ourselves. Because sin is buried deep in our hearts we believe our own lies. We really think we are “all that”. Everyone does. I do. So scripture demands from us real examination, as Psalm 139:23 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me…”

It is a mirror into my soul. It is this part of being in his house I need more than anything.  After 23 years of ministry, you get into a groove, some would even say you fall into a rut, and you need to step back and examine your heart.

I will never forget the time in my life when I went home to visit my parents. They live 20 minutes from Cedar Point and I brought my youth group to camp in their backyard before we went to ride roller coasters the next day. As the kids were setting up their tents and goofing around with one another I went into the house to talk to my parents. As my dad was standing in the kitchen chewing on a cracker, he looked at me and asked me one question, “Chris, when are you going to grow up?”

That is it. That is all he asked me.  But it caused me to reevaluate my job and position as a youth pastor. My dad knew what to say to me to get me thinking about my life. Those words were tough but necessary. So it is with Scripture.

I’m going to God’s house and I know he has some things to tell me. Not sure I am ready to hear them, but I must if I am going to become the person he designed me to be. Scripture exposes the soul, as Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitude of the heart.”

Reading his word gives God the right to judge me. That is what Peter says, “It is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” Wow, ouch, scary, crazy scary. My personal opinion is that it is better to open up now than to be confronted later.

God’s word is not something to trifle with. No wonder it isn’t read that often. People would rather live in a house without windows and mirrors.

So pray for me, and do me a favor. Visit God’s house too, and be ready to hear and listen to God, because he is speaking.