Study, memorize, meditate
Roy Rogers said, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” How true this is at the intersection of Christian faith and the world’s culture when the Bible is more ornamental than transformational. Over 40 years ago as I started college, the religion professor asked my class, “How many of you believe what you believe because a pastor, youth pastor, Sunday School teacher told you this about the Bible?” Ninety percent of the students raised their hands in a class of 40 students. These 90% had not thought deeply, studied deeply and embraced firmly the truths of Scripture. If the truths are not known and embraced firmly, they are easily pried or, at times, dropped when there is confrontation with the world’s culture of destructive ideas.
If you know me, you know I enjoy watching (playing is in the past) football. It amazes me how running backs maintain their grip on the ball with so many opponents specifically attempting to strip or knock the ball out of their hands. They practice physical and mental toughness to hold onto that pigskin against all foes. I have heard and seen in movies, where a college running back has a “fumble-itis” problem, so the coach makes him carry a football with him all the time, even out of practice. The rest of the team looks for his lack of concentration and focus to try to knock the ball out of his hands. It isn’t simply being physically strong, but mentally focused and strong that enables these men to hold onto the ball despite all the attempts to wrestle it away from them. The same must be true of us in our Christian walk.
This is the reason it requires more than just hearing and reading the Bible. As we study and memorize God’s Word it becomes as Psalm 119:105 tells us, “A lamp to our feet and a light to our path.” It isn’t enough to have lamps and flashlights without the batteries to power them in the midst of a power loss. We want fully charged batteries, right? And our need for the light isn’t only in the dark times of life, but in discerning the proper path to godliness — that straight line I mentioned on Sunday. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, from you to God’s glory.” The need to know and the ability to reprove (think apologetics) the culture from the wisdom of Scripture requires more than hearing and reading. And let me remind you, even hearing and reading is never a “been there, done that event”, but a lifelong pursuit in growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord.
Jude 3 tells us, “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” The task of engaging the culture is not the assignment of a few dedicated individual Christians who are well trained, but the call to ambassadorship of all believers (2 Corinthians 5:20) to a lost world searching for truth and meaning. It doesn’t mean, like Charlie Kirk, you have to get a table with a “Prove me wrong” sign, but it does mean preparedness for each and every conversation the Lord provides the opportunity for you to share your reasons for hope in Him.
It is preparing to help and lovingly confront children and grandchildren who have bought the lies of the world and are walking away from their faith. It gives you confidence to engage with those different from you. This battle for the Christian mind is about your pursuit of godliness and preparation as an ambassador for Christ. It is time to study, memorize and meditate on God’s Word regularly. “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8
Pressing on…
Ron Tipton, Senior Pastor
