Wisdom is a power that allows one to stay on the fountainhead. Fountainhead signifies the origin of water. God is the origin of the living water. We must repeatedly return to God. God is the fountainhead of living water who provides everything for us. A wise person is the one who repeatedly returns to the basics. A wise person is the one who repeatedly solidifies the basics. There is someone whom we must repeatedly return back to. It is God. In addition, there is something that we must repeatedly return back to. It is God’s Word. The saints of God must repeatedly return back to the Word of God. We must return again to the Word, to the Gospel, and to God.
Every year when a new year comes, we resolve ourselves to read through the Bible at least once. Sometimes, we fulfill the resolution and sometimes we fail. However, it is important to commit to such resolution repeatedly. To repeatedly commit to such resolution is evidence that our hearts are yearning for God’s Word. My soul always yearns for God’s Word. It longs to study the Word more deeply and meditate and apply the Word.
The souls that believed Jesus and were born again have a yearning for the Word. The new lives who were born through Jesus grow by taking in the Word of God. When people ask me what pastoring is, I tell them that pastoring is pastoring the sheep. Preaching is feeding the bread of life to the sheep. For such reason, I value preaching. Preaching is a work of delivering the bread of life.
Why do we need to repeatedly return to God’s Word? It’s because the Word is the bread of life and the living water. Just as the plants grow where the water flows, the soul grows where the Word flows. The Word is a light that shines through the darkness. Light is understanding. Whoever receives the light of the Word gains understanding. We encounter God through the Word. The Word reveals who God is. When we enter into the Word through holy imagination we encounter the Father God in the Word. We encounter Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Through the Word, we come to understand who God is. We come to understand the humanity. We discover ourselves when we read the Word of God. We discover how sinful we are. Same time, we understand how precious we are for being created in the image of God. There is a treasure of all knowledge and wisdom in the Word. A treasure that cannot be found in any other book in the world is contained in the Word of God.
The Word is power. The Word is the power to heal, the power to defeat the devil, the power to help to overcome the hardships, and the power overcome the obstacles. The Word of God is the power to create. God created the heavens and the earth through the Word. God is still creating new history through the Word. The Word is like a seed. When the Word is sowed, amazing fruit comes about in a due time. When the Word is sowed in the garden of the heart and is kept in the vessel of the heart, then we see God working powerfully through the Word at the appropriate time.
God guides us through the Word. The safest way to hear God’s voice is the read the Word and to meditate. When we meditate on the Word, God gives an amazing understanding. The understanding is the voice of God. We hear various kinds of voices. Some voice is the voice of our conscience. Some voice is the voice of the devil. Some voice is the voice of other people. Some voice is the voice of God. The voice we need to hear is the voice of God. In order to hear the voice of God, we must repeatedly return to the Word. And we must remain in the Word.
Read and meditate on the Word everyday. We become holy at the moment we come in contact with the Word. People are influenced by what they come in contact with. We are influenced by the Word at the moment we come in contact with the Word. We experience holiness at the moment we come in contact with the holy Word. The Word transforms and renews us. To be near the Word is to be near God. Jesus is the Word (John 1:1). For such reason, to walk with the Word is to walk with God. When we grab hold onto the Word, the Word grabs hold of us. I want you to complete the reading the whole Bible in 2016. I want each ministry and cell group to work toward the reading of the whole Bible. Faith grows when we hear and apply the Word. I pray and hope that you will become ‘A Faith Community that Pleases God’ as your faith grow through the Word.
Reverend Joshua Choon-Min Kang is the senior pastor of New Life Vision Church, located in Los Angeles. This is one of the weekly letters he writes to his congregation. For the original, visit www.nlvc.org.
