Respecting God's Word

This week I've been reading 2 Kings 22-23. It tells the story of King Josiah, who unlike his evil father and grandfather before him, followed in the footsteps of David and worshipped the Lord.

During the previous kings' reign, idol worshipping and human sacrifice had become the way of the land and God's Word was lost as it had become irrelevant to the people who turned to other things for fulfillment. When Josiah had the temple repaired they found the Book of Law and brought it to him. He heard the words of the Lord and was filled with remorse and repentance so he gathered all the people together and read to them the Book of the Law and renewed the covenant to follow God and the people did the same.

I was reading this bible passage to prepare for my Sunday school lesson on respecting God's Word but there is another important lesson that I got from it that I'll talk about tomorrow (Lord willing!). When we don't respect His Word it becomes unimportant to us and can become lost both physically and mentally when we need it most. Just like we have to move daily to protect our muscles from atrophy, we need to spend time in the bible to prevent our faith from doing the same. Spending time daily reading the bible has made such a huge difference in how I speak, act, respond and think about the things that happen in my daily life. I find myself referencing scriptures as I go about my day, when talking to friends or even while reading the paper or watching TV. It's pretty amazing how it's woven into every part of my life now and I am so grateful for it.

Another part of respecting God's Word, and sometimes the most challenging part for me, is to do what it says!  John 15:14 says, "You are my friends if you do what I command." and James 1:22 says, "Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.". I named this blog from that verse because in doing so I hope to challenge myself, my family and anyone that may read this blog to put feet to their faith and live out what we have learned from God's Word as our act of obedience. Not that we have to earn our salvation (we don't), but as an outpouring of the love we have for God and from God.

My prayer today is to respect God's Word, to read and obey what it says.

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