¡Hola, hola! What a joy it has been to take up the Book of God and read it these past few weeks with you all. In the middle of our daily summer routines we have been working on doing the will of God, that is, to know Him. Have you thought about that? Since the beginning, the Father has always made Himself known to His people, He wants His people to know Him, to love Him, to obey Him. And when we come to the Word of God, we come to the exact place which God has appointed to teach us all that we need to know about Him, about ourselves, our neighbors, and this world. How are we not going to take the Book and read it? Where else can we go to find life? Our daily Bible reading is more than a discipline we cultivate, it is our life line.
I want to share today a wonderful quote from Thomas Watson on the subject of the Scriptures:
“Be thankful to God for the Scriptures. What a mercy is it that God has not only acquainted us with what His will is, but that He has made it known by writing! The Scripture is our pole-star to direct us to heaven, it shows us every step we are to take; when we go wrong–it instructs us; when we go right–it comforts us.
Adore God’s distinguishing grace, if you have felt the power and authority of the Word upon your conscience; if you can say as David, “Your word has quickened me.” Christian, bless God that He has not only given you His Word to be a rule of holiness–but His grace to be a principle of holiness. Bless God that He has not only written His Word, but sealed it upon your heart, and made it effectual. Can you say it is of divine inspiration, because you have felt it to be of lively operation? Oh free grace! that God should send out His Word, and heal you; that He should heal you–and not others! That the same Scripture which to them is a dead letter–should be to you a savor of life!” [1]
So, Friends, by grace through faith, this coming week, we will take the Book of God and read it because we want to know God, to love Him and worship Him more!
This week we will finish reading Revelation and will start the gospel of Matthew. In the gospel of Matthew, we see how the apostle tells us over and over again how Jesus is the Son of David, the Promised One who would come and sit on the throne of David forever. He comes teaching with authority, and comes to advance His Kingdom.
Matthew wants his readers – including you and I – to see how Jesus is the Messiah. To do so he points us to many Old Testament passages and tells us how Jesus came to fulfill what the prophets had written about Him. This is actually pretty amazing because we can see also how the OT and the NT are not independent, but dependent on each other. Each of the 66 books of the Bible are the inspired Word of God and given to us to know God and His way of salvation.
In this gospel we will also see how the same themes that ran through the gospel of John and his letters, run here. God is light and we ought to walk in light. And walking in the light is not something that happens in the darkness so that no one notices. When we walk in the light others should be able to see our good works, the fruit of our abiding in Christ. So we have the Beatitudes, and we learn how we ought to walk as children of light.
If you are doing the extended reading plan you will be reading the epistle Paul wrote to the Ephesians twice in a week. Ephesians is a wonderful book to see how our walking in the light looks like. Notice that the first three chapters tells us what Christ has already done of us. And then the next three chapters tell us how we, now that we have received all the benefits of God’s work on our behalf, should walk. It would be impossible for us to obey the last three chapters if we had not first received, by grace through faith, a great salvation. Our obedience always flow from His saving work in us. And that, my Friends, is super good news!
May our prayer this week be, “Father, we trust in Christ’s work for us. Thank you because He said, “It is done!” Thank you because we who are thirsty can come and drink from the fountain of life and and without paying anything ourselves have our thirst quenched. We want more of you, Lord, so we will come to your Word to drink more and be satisfied. In Jesus name, Amen” (Prayer based on Rev. 21:6)
Under His sun and by His grace,
Becky Pliego and the Christ Church Ladies Fellowship
