Key WORD PICTURE: KEY
Scriptural Reference: 2 Timothy 3:16, 17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
1. Have someone(s) read the scriptures from various translations.
2. Show a key (house key, car key, maybe a tiny key to a diary?) Using the key, explain this premise: that the Bible is the key to unlocking the door to victorious living. Because it is the Word of God, it guides us into the best ways to live. Is anyone familiar with the following acronym? BIBLE=Basic Information Before Leaving Earth. The key!
Underscore with this Smith Wigglesworth quote:
“The Bible is the Word of God supernatural in origin, eternal in duration, inexpressible in valor, infinite in scope, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, universal in interest, personal in application, inspired in totality. Read it through, write it down, pray it in, work it out, and then pass it on. Truly the Word of God changes a man until he becomes an epistle of God. It transforms his mind, changes his character, moves him on from grace to grace, and makes him an inheritor of the very nature of God. God comes in, dwells in, walks in, talks through, and sups with him who pens his being on the Word of God.”
3. My sharing, offered to spark sharing by others.
What I Shared
When we don’t follow God’s ways to live, we find that life doesn’t work. But people don’t even know God’s ways anymore -- in Hosea 4:6a, He says, My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. In Proverbs 30:12 He says that there is a generation of those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth. On the other hand, there is great joy for those who know His ways and follow them (for example, read Isaiah 35:8-10).
Many skeptics say the Bible is “just another book” -- or they’ll agree with the Bible in selected parts but not the whole. This can be argued against intellectually -- and logically -- and historically (see Lee Strobel’s Case for Christ), but I want to discuss this experientially in terms of what we have actually seen in our own lives.
I will stir up the pot by saying I’ve seen much more victory in my life since I started praying scripture OUT LOUD. It’s as though God’s will is activated simply by speaking it into the atmosphere. This claim is Biblical, because Jeremiah 1:12 says, The LORD said to me, "You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled."
Maybe He can actually see the Scriptures as a bright green or something! Maybe He’s just looking for green spots and then dips down closer. Isaiah 55:10, 11 says, As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire. Also Psalm 107:20 says, He sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave. Apparently it’s also up to us to SEND FORTH His Word. He says that the fervent prayers of a righteous person are effective.
I think His Word is destined to self-fulfill if only we can get it out of our mouths! Expression paraphrased from a 12-step program:
The Word Works When You Work the Word.
So -- whaddyya think?
All Scripture references from the New International Version of the Bible (NIV).
Copyright by Whitney McKendree Moore, April 2007