A life-changing love affair.

A life-changing love affair. That's what I'm proposing. Something that invades your heart in such a way that you can neither deny its influence or reject its power. I'm talking about the Word of God. Charles Spurgeon, powerful pastor and writer, once said, "Defend the Bible? I would just as soon defend a lion. Just turn the Bible loose. It will defend itself."

That's real power. And, honestly, that's what many of our churches and their respective people are missing. Real power.

I read recently of a group of college students who got together just to read the Word. That's it. No other agenda. They would meet weekly to read through Scripture and to take it to heart. They would read a story where God promised He could heal and they would pray healing for a friend. They would read how God promised to never leave us alone and would offer up the names of lonely people on their campus. Reading God's plan for sex and marriage prompted them to pray for the sexual activity of friends and roommates. Lives were being changed because of the power of the Bible and their belief in that power.

The flip-side is this...I've served in churches where the Bible wasn't even part of the message on Sunday. It was a feel-good, meditative thought that didn't rely on the power of the written word to be the foundation of the spoken Word. Needless to say, we didn't stay long at that church and that church never amounted to much.

My prayer for Ridgeview is that we would become passionate lovers of this Word that God has given us. It has extreme power to offer healing, mercy, love, grace, strength and information for living our lives...but only if we soak it in. What would happen if we were more adamant about having our Bible with us than our cell phone? What if we spent as much time reading the Bible weekly as we did the newspaper or our favorite magazines? What if the Bread of Life really became as important to us as our food?

We would undoubtedly find ourselves in the midst of the next great Revival (dare I say, greatest revival). Stop what you are doing right now. Pick up His love letter to you and begin to read daily His message for your life. One verse a day, one thought at a time, you will find His power for your life ready and waiting.