Proclaimer Blog
Does anything really beat a hunger for God’s word? Yes, just one.
Every time I visit India I am amazed and humbled at people's hunger for Gods word. It's really very tangible. I see it everywhere I look:
- some business people have given a week's work time up to come and join our class so that they will understand God's word better
- if you set students some homework, they actually do it!
- people actually know their Bibles; they regularly and really read them
- reading the Bible through in a year is uncommon, most seem to do it every six months or less
- Bibles are well thumbed
- no one complains at longer sermons if they're full of biblical truth
- people remember sermons: "Pastor I remember your last sermon 18 months ago…."
And so on. This is a precious, precious thing and we must pray that we ourselves, and our people, will have a similar hunger. But it's missing one vital ingredient. There is one thing better, of course. It's a hunger for Jesus Christ. We love the word because we love the Word. And we must not let our hunger for the Bible become a bookish irrelevance. We love our Bibles because our Bibles reveal Christ Jesus to us. And one without the other is deadly.
So this recent trip has got me thinking about praying for people in our church. I want them to love Jesus and know him more and more. And because I want them to love him I want them to have a real, tangible hunger for God's word.
And, rest assured, I am praying it for myself too….