by J. Randal Matheny

The Bible has one message. That one message can be understood by any and all. People read into the Bible many of their own ideas, because they do not pay attention to its own meaning.

A basic rule of understanding the Bible is to let the Bible interpret itself. But many people are too lazy to READ the entire 66 books and connect the dots, so to speak.

One often abused verse, as an example, is Psalm 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart" (NIV).

The selfish person, the egotist, and the stubborn-hearted love this verse. Just think, if you find delight in God, he will give you whatever you want. If you think I'm exaggerating, just listen to some of the tele-evangelists.

Now, if people would read a few books further into the Holy Scripture, they would discover Isaiah 26:8: "Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts."

When one delights in the Lord, ones desires are turned completely from self to glorify God. One's life purpose becomes to focus everyone's attention upon the goodness, mercy, justice, salvation, will, power, plan, word, and character of God. The name of God. His renown.

Isaiah illuminates for us, if we need a prod away from our selfish interpretation, the meaning of the verse in Psalm 37. This connection is not an isolated moment.

Scripture is a veritable web of strands that stretches across the entire range of the Old and New Testaments. Only by daily reading, by frequent consultation, by memorization, will we recognize and appreciate the intricacy of this marvelous inner referencing.

This feature of the Bible is not one that only an expert can appreciate and note. The various lines of discovery are accessible to every person, to lesser or greater degree, sufficiently so that anyone may discover for himself the single message of the Bible.

To a multitude of ex-slaves, Moses said,

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it (Deuteronomy 30:11-14).

So pick up your Bible, and start reading.

by J. Randal Matheny

We sometimes feel unfulfilled, with one or more needs unmet. Perhaps a husband or wife doesn't give us enough attention. Parents may have neglected or abused us as children, and we still ache because they didn't provide us the home life we needed. Maybe we're high achievers who haven't reached the mark yet. Or some strange urge -- homosexual feelings, in-the-know hunger, a cruelty streak -- drives us to act out indecent or perverse behaviors.

To fill needs, people seek drugs, alcohol, food, sex, work, thrills, sports, or games. Just as marketers find a niche and fill it, Satan opens up a myriad of quick fixes for whatever ails us.

What is your need? Any need. Every need. List one, or list them all.

Now make a list of where you go to meet those needs.

Israel thought she had needs that God wouldn't or couldn't fulfill. But other gods could.

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. Psalm 81.8-10, ESV

God's cry to Israel belongs on every newspaper and network news today.

Our feet tread the wrong path, and God calls out to us change direction. He admonishes, corrects, chides, waves his hands high in the air to get our attention. One of his long-time appeals is, "Listen to me!" Because he knows best.

Every person, place, or thing that we seek out to fill our needs becomes a god. When we ignore the Lord's provisions or fail to trust him to supply all of life's needs, we will seek out other sources. That's why Paul will call greed idolatry (Colossians 3:5). Money promises security, importance, power, but it's an empty promise, as all gods make. For this reason, Jesus calls it "the deceitfulness of wealth" (Mark 4:19).

Memory of what God has done for us drives us to him for our present need. Israel's benchmark was God's deliverance from Egypt. The church recites the crucifixion as its day of creation and makes a case for God's goodness by every action of his in history.

Fullness to satisfaction is God's trademark. He is not a stingy, begrudging Deity, but "gives generously to all without finding fault" (James 1:5). Saints are obese! Not from lack of exercise, lack of sharing, lack of selflessness, but because God is generous. One preacher said no matter how fast we shovel out the blessings, God has a bigger shovel.

God is filling! So when I have a nagging need or an unfilled urge, I know just where to go.

by J. Randal Matheny

We learn it quickly as children. "I can't!" The exclamation of fear, of doubt, even of certainty that we are not able to tackle what dad, mom, or the teacher required of us. Often, it was an excuse to avoid the effort of what we could do, but were too lazy or stubborn to do.

Perhaps that's part of why Jesus wants us to be like little children, to say "I can't" when it comes to the Kingdom of God.

• I can't earn enough credits to win God's approval and wow my way into Heaven.

• I can't figure out the mind of God without going to the single place he's put his revelation, in the Bible.

• I can't put up with my brothers and sisters in Christ (never mind them putting up with me) without the grace and example of the Lord.

• I can't handle the tremendous task Jesus has left with me, to preach the gospel to the world.

Even Paul agrees with me. "And who is equal to such a task?" (2 Corinthians 2:16, NIV).

So we should all quit and forget the whole thing, right? Wrong.

Only when I cry "I can't" can I pick up the staff of God's power and proclaim "I can."

"Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant -- not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Corinthians 3:4-6).

So, yes, ...

• I can receive God's approval and wing my way to Heaven, because Jesus lived a perfect life and gave himself as my sacrifice.

• I can know the mind of God by listening to the voice of Christ.

• I can bear patiently with my fellow Christians by the love of the Spirit. And they can even make room for me.

• I can fulfill the task of evangelism, because God's love motivates me and my gratitude never lets my efforts flag.

I can't. I can.

Because God can in me.

by J. Randal Matheny

The Postal Service of the USA issued a stamp honoring the one hundredth anniversary of the first flight by the Wright Brothers.

The first man in powered flight was from Ohio. The first man ever to orbit Earth was from Ohio. And the first man on the moon was from Ohio. It sounds like a lot of people are trying to get out of Ohio.

And a lot of people are trying to get out of other states as well. The state of despair. The state of failure. The state of ruin. The state of flat soft drinks, where nothing ever happens. The state of sin's guilt and destruction.

But fleeing these states is not done by air or space travel. Nor by drugs or alcohol or indiscriminate sex or other attempts to warp the space-time continuum. The latter are part of the problem, not the solution.

Jesus came to earth, not in flight from heaven, but on a rescue mission. To help us get out of the bad fixes we invented.

I've never been to Ohio, but it's probably a decent state. I have been to Jesus, and I can speak authoritatively about him. And though I've never been to heaven, I know Jesus is there, and that is sufficient.

For I'm fleeing a bad state of spirit and heading toward the solution.

"No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man" (John 3:13, ESV).

by J. Randal Matheny

Invisible molecules move the Internet. Robot crawlers burrow from website to website registering content for the search engines. In the header section of a webpage, a webmaster can list unseen key words to identify a site and provide a description for people who use services like Google to find what they want. Those key words become an important tool in the growing jungle we know as the Internet.

Christians also use a wide group of key words to mark their faith. Unlike the Internet, these words appear often on their lips and mark their lives as different from the world in general. These words are more than mere tags, but denote a profound reality in which they live and move and have their being.

I have listed below a few of those key Christian words that came immediately to my mind.

• GOD. All begins and ends with the creative power, benevolent order, and purposeful action of the almighty God. True religion concerns itself with actions performed "in the sight of our God and Father" (James 1:27, NASB). Man bears his image, and by his blessing male and female become Man (Genesis 6:1,2). Even in flight or rebellion, man is defined in relation to God, for whose fellowship he was made.

• JESUS CHRIST. Of several New Testament summaries of the gospel, perhaps the shortest boils it down to a single phrase: "For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). In an otherwise excellent book, one writer criticized the concept that everything about Christianity must revolve around Jesus. Men abuse that concept to exclude great doctrines, but we can only rejoice in the truth that every act, thought, motive, and word of the Christian faith centers in Jesus. (See Ephesians 1:3, 19-23.)

• HOLY SPIRIT. Always pointing to Christ, the Spirit of God empowers the word to do its work of conversion and transformation. Christians are marked people, having been given the seal of the promised Holy Spirit. His presence with us today is the guarantee of the eternal inheritance we will shortly receive (Ephesians 1:13,14). He creates and sustains our fellowship with God and one another (2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 4:3).

• LOVE. God is love (1 John 3:16). We should never assume that people understand the nature and character of God. The long history of the Old Testament testifies to his faithful mercy in fulfilling the eternal plan. Its culmination leads us to point to that one place where love made its ultimate sacrifice.

• CROSS. Satan made Golgotha ground zero for his major attack. God made it the beachhead for the final victory. So the Cross is our only boast (Galatians 6:14) and the only hoop through which one must jump to get to God (Galatians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 1:23). For if Jesus was crucified, his followers face the same fate (Luke 9:23).

• OBEDIENCE. We preach the Cross that all "may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood" (1 Peter 1:2). Some depend upon works to prove their goodness; others spout an empty, demonic faith void of action. To obey means to surrender one's own efforts (or lack of them) in order to follow Jesus and do the will of God.

This highly selective list doesn't do justice to the rich vocabulary of faith, nor to the fullness of God's grace at work in his people. It brushes the hem of the garment to remind us of the blessing we carry to enjoy and share.