A Love Letter

I have always been a reader. I began when I was young with Hardy Boys mysteries books and never looked back. As a teenager I had heard that the Bible had great stories in it, and discovered, it does indeed.

There’s the story about Paul preaching so long that a teenager named Eutychus, who was sitting on a windowsill, fell asleep, causing him to fall out of the window and die. Yeah, can you imagine? His death certificate would have read, “Preached to death.” How about the construction site miracle? The prophet Elisha and his band of friends were chopping down trees to build a house, when in mid-back swing, an axe broke, flew off and sank in the nearby Jordan River. One of the men shouted the ancient equivalent of, “Oh no! That wasn’t even mine – I borrowed it.” Calmly, Elisha whips out a stick, sets it on the surface of the water, and the axe head miraculously floated to the top. What? Then there is the time Samson took out his rage on some Philistines when they gave away his wife to another man. Judges 15:4-5 says, “Then he [Samson] went out and caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together in pairs, and he fastened a torch to each pair of tails. Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the grain fields of the Philistines. He burned all their grain to the ground, including the sheaves and the uncut grain. He also destroyed their vineyards and olive groves.” Really? Fox arson? Then, there’s another fascinating Elisha story. Elisha was traveling, going about his message-from-God business, when a gang of teenagers surrounded him and started harassing him, yelling insults and calling him “baldy.” To prove the Lord doesn’t take mockery lightly, he answers Elisha’s prayer for justice and sends two angry bears to attack the group. The bears mauled over forty of the young men! And we cannot forget when Balaam’s donkey spoke to him basically saying, “Stop beating me! I was trying to save your life!” That’s right. A talking donkey! Thousands of years before Shrek.

Out of them all, however, the best story is the one that goes, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Yes, if we keep reading the story continues, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation” (Romans 5:6-9).

So, I encourage us all to keep reading. The Bible is full of all kinds of stories and well worth our time reading and not just for the entertainment value. We should read it because it is the truth. As Paul says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

But remember, ultimately, the Bible is a love letter. Written to remind us how much the Father loves His children.         

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Remember you can email praises and petitions to southchurchprayer@gmail.com. I lift them up every Wednesday at 4:00 pm on Facebook Live.

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