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God-Breathed Words for a God-Breathed Life

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January 12, 2021

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)

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.

CONSIDER THIS

God-breathed. Did you catch that? God-breathed.

We live in a creation brought into being by God-breathed words. We are the image-bearers of God, those into whom God breathed the breath of life. And we know these things because we hold in our hands a book filled with God-breathed words.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Are we awake to this revolutionary reality? All Scripture . . . every . . . single . . . word . . . breathed by God.  Or have we slowly gone to sleep at the wheel, lulled into slumber by a doctrinaire confidence; no longer alert  but aloof? There is only one way to know—a careful assessment of our level of engagement with this God-breathed book. Are we reading, ruminating, rememberizing, researching, and rehearsing the Word of God? Does this Word remain bound in our books or is it being liberated into our everyday walking around living and breathing lives? Are these words locked into the quiet-time compartments of our morning devotions or are we finding ways to loose them into the life-flow of the hours and minutes of our days and nights?

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

I know. I know. Many of you feel as though you are doing good to read the Daily Text on most days. I appreciate this, and yet I am compelled to challenge you. As this series continues I intend to contend for more and more of your attention for the Word of God. Did you catch those four strategic words from today’s text? Teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training. I tend to camp out around teaching and training, mostly steering clear of rebuking and correcting. I may foray into this more challenging territory in the days ahead. I love this word of rebuke and correction John Wesley gave to his preachers.

Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a petty, superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you in particular.

We would be remiss not to note verse 17, which captures the purpose of this work of teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

It always comes back around to doing it. The test of discipleship is not discipline but devotion to doing it. The test of awakening is not waking up, as great as this is, but staying awake. This discipleship series aspires both to wake us up and to sustain the awakening. I want you and me to be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

First Word. Last Word. God’s Word.

THE PRAYER

Our Father in heaven, thank you for your Word, which endures forever. Thank you for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training me in righteousness. I want to be thoroughly equipped for every good work. I know it will not happen apart from your Word and your Spirit. Save me from self-congratulatory backslaps over baby steps. I need—no, I want—to be challenged to my core. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 

THE QUESTION

When is the last time you found yourself rebuked or corrected by the Word of God? 

For the Awakening,
J.D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com

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WHAT IS THIS? Wake-Up Call is a daily encouragement to shake off the slumber of our busy lives and turn our eyes toward Jesus. Each morning our community gathers around a Scripture, a reflection, a prayer, and a few short questions, inviting us to reorient our lives around the love of Jesus that transforms our hearts, homes, churches, and cities.

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