For Christmas that year my girlfriend (now my wife) gave me a Bible.  I remember receiving this gift with disappointment.  I thought that while the gift was certainly well intentioned it was not something which I would use.  Apparently my face revealed my thoughts, because Pam issued the following challenge: “You think you’re so smart, but no one who has never read this book can claim to have any intelligence at all.”

As I went home I could not decide whether or not I had been given a gift, assigned homework, or called stupid.  I believe anyone who knows me would agree that I have never considered myself to be stupid.  Her challenge stung me and over a period of weeks and months I found myself reading the Bible she had given me almost daily.  I started reading in the beginning, Genesis.  To be honest I did not comprehend everything.  To be brutally honest I did not comprehend much, but I was determined and kept reading.

Eventually I began praying and asking the Holy Spirit to help me understand what I read.  Each days reading did not lead me to an epiphany, however, gradually over time my understanding increased.  I remember days when my Bible reading was dry and required the exertion of my own personal discipline (while I was reading through the “begats”) in various parts of the Old Testament.

Then it happened, I came across a passage which caused my spirit to leap within me and brain to finally fully engage the biblical text.  I read in Isaiah:

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. Isaiah 51:6 (KJV)

This passage leapt off of the page.  In an instant I understood that all my ambition was for naught.  Only one thing mattered in my life and in the life of every other person on the planet.  The only thing that mattered was God’s salvation.  In an instant the ambiguity of life was for me clarified.

That was twenty-eight years ago.  Since that time I have read through the Bible more times than I know.  I wish I had thought to keep count.  I went to seminary and learned to read Hebrew and Greek so I could better understand it.  I think it is accurate to say that I have committed my life to studying this book I did not want.

It is truly amazing how God works.  On occasion I wonder what my life would have been like had I not been given both the gift of that Bible and the challenge to read it.  Such thoughts are not profitable, however, because I was given it and I did read it.  What I did not understand at the time was that each passage of the Scriptures are a gift.  They contain deep and living waters for our soul.  Many people seek for answers to life’s questions from many other sources.  Unfortunately these other sources cannot lead us to salvation but instead lead us away from God and His salvation.

I would like to challenge you to pick up your Bible and read it.  Read it regularly and read it seriously.  Ask God the Holy Spirit to teach the truth of what you read.  Read until its passages leap off of the page into your understanding. My hope and prayer is that like me you will find within the Bible a gift unwanted that will become treasured by you always.

There are things in life for which you cannot ever be truly prepared.  Losing someone you love is just such a circumstance. I remember an old preacher telling me that it is not until “the pushes of life come that you find out what truly resides on the inside of someone.”  My dad’s death was one of those “pushes” placed upon my life.

After I received the phone call breaking the terrible news I had an hour drive to reflect on my relationship with my dad.  We had become extremely close in my adulthood.  So much so that I remember grieving most for the loss of my best friend.  I remembered many wonderful and some challenging times on this drive.  When I arrived at my parents home I went into the room where my dad’s body lay.  After seeing his lifeless body the enormity and cold reality of the finality which death is came rushing over me.  As I walked past my mother and my uncles I went outside and fell on my knees crying and praying as I cried.  It was at this moment that the following words came rushing from my lips: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” I didn’t know I had memorized that verse nor had hidden it in my heart, but when this great “push” of life came upon me that is what came flowing out.

The word’s of course were first spoken by Job after losing his children, and his wealth.

20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. Job 1:20-22 (ESV)

The challenge which I and every Christian faces is being ready for whatever life may bring.  We don’t prepare for the big pushes of life, we are made ready daily by the indwelling power of His Spirit. As I continue to live with this reality I pray I will continue to be made ready for whatever my heavenly Father my choose.

2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.     Exodus 6:2–4 (ESV)

God is telling Moses that He has revealed something about Himself to Moses which He had not revealed to Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Think about that!  Would it not be incredible to know God so well that He would tell you things about Himself which He had told no one else.  We all have friends in whom we confide, but we only confide our secrets to close personal friends.

Moses was so close to God that God would tell him what he did not tell His other friends.  Abraham was His friend but God did not disclose to Abraham what He was telling Moses.

and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. James 2:23 (NASB)

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew two of the three names.  In the passage above the word translated God in Hebrew (the original O.T. language) is “Elohim.”  The word translated Almighty in Hebrew is “Adonai.”  The word translated Lord in Hebrew is “Yahweh.”  This is the personal name of God.  The word is the “to be” verb in Hebrew.  It literally means “He is.”  In other words God’s name means, I Am or I exist.  This name “Yahweh” is the name of God which the Hebrew people knew as the ineffable name of God.

They took the commandment not to take Yahweh’s name in vain so seriously that they refused to speak His name at all.  Their rationale was that if one never uttered His name then they could never take His name in vain.

You do not have to be able to read Hebrew to find God’s name in the O.T.  Look in your O.T. and find the word “Lord.”  Look closely and you will most likely discover that the word is written LORD.  When the “ord” are written in small capital letters “ORD” then the word which is being translated into English is “Yahweh” the personal name of God which the Hebrew people considered to be to sacred to speak.

Do you consider God’s name sacred?  How do you show your respect for His name?  Taking God’s name in vain can be done through our speech, but there are other ways in which His name may be taken in vain that do not involve speech.

Perhaps the greatest way we take His name in vain is when we profess to know Him but live a lifestyle which is at odds with His word and does not honor or acknowledge Him. I want to so live that I know, honor and obey!