Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Being fit for the kingdom...

involves the fullness of calling on His name for salvation. It means every part and meaning of calling on His name. It means the restriction of self to have the embracing of Him. And embracing Him comes only through reading His Words about Himself, His plan, His promises, and His purposes. It means eating and feasting of this bread and manna that feeds the soul, renews the mind, and transforms the will. This is to be fit for the kingdom.

"Here is one among many reasons why we ought to be diligent readers of our Bibles: The Word is the 'sword of the Spirit:' we shall never fight a good fight if we do not use it as our principal weapon.--The Word is the 'lamp' for our feet: we shall never keep the King's highway to heaven if we do not journey by its light. (Eph 6:17; Ps 119:105)--It may well be feared that there is not enough Bible-reading amongst us. It is not sufficient to have the Book: we must actually read it, and pray over it ourselves. It will do us no good if it only lies still in our houses: we must be actually familiar with its contents, and have its texts stored in our memories and minds. Knowledge of the Bible never comes by intuition; it can only be got by hard, regular, daily, attentive, wakeful reading. Do we grudge the time and trouble this will cost us? If we do we are not yet fit for the kingdom of God." J.C. Ryle

4 comments:

  1. Still working on that restriction of self to embrace Him more part :)
    Blessings...

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  2. What a wonderful and true quote from J.C. Ryle. Far too few of us raise our swords on a daily basis (myself included). Thanks for sharing this!

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  3. Knowledge of the Bible never comes by intuition; it can only be got by hard, regular, daily, attentive, wakeful reading.

    Amen! How often do I cheat myself - forgive me Lord

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  4. Yes...oh yes. Far be it from us to be proud of the fleeting moments we spend in the Word. We realize as we walk the road with Him that, whatever time we (grudgingly) give Him is not "enough". May our hunger ever be insatiable!

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