Prayer: Father, may I be anchored firmly in Your Word from this day forward. Amen.
Reading: Psalm 125 Key: vs. 1b
Those who trust in Adonai are like Mount Zion—
it cannot be moved, but endures forever.
Attention: Perhaps you’ve heard this one …
Plowing at night through rough, foggy seas, a battleship’s radar suddenly indicates an object directly in its path. The ship’s captain sends a radio signal, “We are on a collision course. Advise you to change course 10 degrees north.”
A response crackles over the radio: “Negative. We advise you to change course 10 degrees south.”
The captain can now see a blinking light from the approaching object. Perturbed, he bellows a reply: “I’m a ship’s captain. Change course 10 degrees north, now!”
“I’m a seaman second class,” comes the reply. “Advise that you change course 10 degrees south to avoid imminent collision.”
The captain is furious. He blurts another command: “This is a battleship! Change your course immediately!”
Back comes the calm reply: “This is a lighthouse.”
The battleship changed course. (From DASMA article titled, The Battleship and The Lighthouse by Tom Wadsworth @2005)
Have you ever treated the Word of Adonai as this captain treated the Lighthouse? Have you ever tried to make scripture fit your narrative or have you always adapted to the Word? If we are accepting and embracing the narrative of the world about who Adonai is, doesn’t that seem backwards? The world does not know Adonai, they know bits and pieces about Him and form their image of Adonai based on that information. This approach is like trying to explain to someone what an elephant looks like from viewing a portion of the elephant through a knot hole in a fence. The elephant is so close to the fence that you only see a sliver of a fraction of the total image of the elephant.
The psalmist compares Adonai to a mountain, Mount Zion, “which cannot be moved.” Are you basing your image of Adonai on the Word or on the narrative of who the world tells you God is? The key importance of the Choose Life plan is the daily study of Adonai’s Word so that you know what it says, what Adonai says of Himself. Even the Berean people of Acts 17 studied the Word daily so that they could confirm what the Apostles were telling them was true. They did not give even the Apostles carte blanc approval. They studied for themselves to confirm the Word being taught to them.
If I could do a little paraphrase of Romans 12:2, it says, “Do not be conformed to this world,” or it’s narrative. Allow the Word of Adonai to tell us who He is and who man is. If we do allow the world to express their take on who Adonai is, and embrace it, this is backwards. Allow the Word of Adonai to transform your mind and be conformed to His image.
Action: I will seek to stand with Adonai and allow His Spirit to transform my mind through the study of His Word.
Yield: I yield to the Word and the Holy Spirit as the transforming agents of Adonai.
Engage: When I engage with the Word of Adonai and the Holy Spirit, transformation begins.
Relationship: Begins when I am actively, daily engaged with the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit.
Prayer: Father, help me to submit my life to a daily lifestyle of time with You, in the Word. Transformation comes when I submit to the Holy Spirit’s work in me, through the Word. Amen.
Memory Verse: Romans 12:2
2 Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Music Video for the more contemporary: Natalie Grant – I Will Not Be Moved w/ Lyrics – Relentless
Music Video for the traditional: Fortune/Walker/Rogers/Isaacs – The Lighthouse (Live At Columbia, TN/2020)
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”