The Bible won’t save you. You can study the Scriptures for your whole life and never find the truth. At some point you have to decide to go where the Bible directs you. Unless you do this, you will be like a person who studies maps but never leaves home. The Scriptures point to Jesus and Jesus beckons us to come to him. To do this we must leave one sort of life behind and take up another. The first sort of life is a life lived for the praise of people; a life lived to fulfil the expectations placed upon us by others. The second sort of life is a life lived for the praise of God, that we might, one day, hear him say, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant’. Whose praise do you long for? Before which audience will you live your life, the audience of other people or the audience of God? Every day we make decisions to please the audience we most revere. Today you have the opportunity all over again to make a conscious decision to live for the praise of God. To do this is to open the way for faith to grow in your heart. Jesus says here in John 5: “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?” If you live for the praise of God, then all that may otherwise remain abstract theology will become real for you. You will no longer be the housebound map student. You will walk with God.
Make a decision to live for the praise of God today.
Read John 5:31-47
