Getting Personal

If you spend enough time with God, He has a funny way of stripping off the pretense and zeroing in on your heart.

Recently, I took a couple of weeks off from preaching and that allowed me extra time to read through the book of Micah, which I was planning on preaching through when I got back. The first week was good - I read through it as often as possible and took pages of notes on what I was getting out of it. It was page after page of thoughts of YOU - You and all the rest of the Christian culture. I could see my sermon shaping up, hard hits on the way the Christian church has morphed into a comfortable business that self-perpetuates itself so that the money and prestige and jobs can be maintained. We make disciples for the sole purpose of remaining in business. Injustice reigns and those by the wayside are kept there, unless of course they can bring something of value into the house. I was all set to give a good (and needed) slam upon 'The Church.' (Something we love to do as pastors.)

Then a strange and uncomfortable thing happened: I found myself with two more weeks to read it until I preached it. I don't like this as a preacher, I like to catch the wave of my understanding just right, riding it into the Sunday sermon. I was ready - but I had no choice but to continue reading Micah, and as I continued through it, it became less global and much more personal. God started ripping up my "Church" thoughts and shone the light of His Word right on me. It was hard, but it was good for me. I have a tendency, like most people, to hear a sermon or read a book and think: "Man, ________________ really needs to hear this."

But given enough time, God will make His Word very personal. The problem is, we never seem to give Him enough time. We haven't cultivated the devotional mentality that many of the old saints had, where they would find time to meditate on Scripture for extended periods of time. We read it once and think we've got it all down, and it's usually that means we point it at someone else.

Give His Word some time. Find a passage and read through it for a week. I guarantee you He'll strip away your global thoughts and telescope His Word right into the depths of your heart. But if you really love God, that's a good thing. Because as the Psalmist says, "Your Word have I hid in my heart - that I might not sin against You." And isn't that what we really want?