{"id":3988,"date":"2017-05-30T15:13:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T20:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedisciplemaker.org\/?p=3988"},"modified":"2017-05-30T15:13:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T20:13:06","slug":"how-scripture-changes-your-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2017\/05\/how-scripture-changes-your-story\/","title":{"rendered":"How Scripture Changes Your Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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[maxbutton id=”1″ ]
\nSome years ago I was at the front end of dealing with a history of childhood sexual abuse. I was seeing a counselor and getting support from friends, but I still felt lost and defiled. This was the issue that plagued my mind each day as I spent time in prayer and Bible study.
\nI was reading through the New Testament, a familiar text to me by that stage of my life because I had worked for seven years as a writer and was now an editor of Bible study guides. But as the old, dark memories swirled in my soul, Jesus felt distant and cold to me.
\nI got to Matthew 8, where Jesus heals a man with leprosy. \u201cLord, if you are willing,\u201d says the leper, \u201cyou can make me clean.\u201d My leaden heart said, \u201cYes, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean!\u201d But nothing happened. I was still terribly damaged goods.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nSeveral weeks later I read the story of the leper again, this time in Mark 1. My prayer was, \u201cLord, why won\u2019t you make me clean? You made the leper clean. Why not me?\u201d Silence.
\nThen when I read again about Jesus healing the leper in Luke 5, I was close to despair. \u201cPlease, Lord. Touch me. Heal me.\u201d Nothing.<\/strong>
\nAbout a month later I had finished the four Gospels and was making my way through Acts. Now even the apostles could do these miraculous healings. I was frustrated. Only the discipline of habit kept me turning the pages each day.
\nActs 10 tells how the devoutly Jewish Simon Peter began to entertain the outrageous notion that the gospel might be for Gentiles as well as Jews. Peter was doing his normal noonday prayer time when he fell into a trance. He saw a vision of a sheet being let down to earth. The sheet was full of animals that the Old Testament said were unclean for Jews to eat. A voice told him, \u201cGet up, Peter. Kill and eat.\u201d
\n\u201cSurely not, Lord!\u201d Peter replied. \u201cI have never eaten anything impure or unclean\u201d (verses 13-14).
\nThe voice answered back, \u201cDo not call anything impure that God has made clean\u201d (verse 15).
\nI held my breath. The verse was about the Gentiles, of course, but I also heard it as a word from God to me. It struck me that after all these months I had been asking him to heal and change me, he was saying he did that years ago. I wasn\u2019t unclean! I was a full member of his family! This was a turning point in my recovery.
\nLife Change Requires Consistent Reading of God\u2019s Word<\/strong>
\nMany of us get bored or frustrated about reading the Bible every day\u2014or we feel we are too busy. We want each day\u2019s encounter with the Scriptures to be life changing. But that\u2019s not how it works. Revelation comes as we take in the big, overall story of the Bible day after day.
\n\u201cBut wait,\u201d you say. \u201cI try to read the Bible, but I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on.\u201d That\u2019s okay; nobody does when they first get started. The good news is that help is readily available. There are some great commentaries on the market, and the free resources on the Internet are truly amazing. You can find pictures of the Sea of Galilee on Wikipedia, along with information about how big the lake is. You can find the definition of key words from Paul\u2019s letters like justification and righteousness<\/em>. You can look up people\u2019s names.
\nTreat it as an adventure of discovery.<\/strong> There\u2019s no rush to get through a book\u2014you can take small chunks at a time and investigate them so that you understand what\u2019s being said.
\nI\u2019m a big believer in going through a whole book rather than jumping around to isolated verses. That\u2019s because the stories were written as whole stories, and the letters were written as whole letters. The individual verses are in the context of paragraphs, and it\u2019s important to follow the train of thought.
\n

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Life-giving bible studies for every book of the bible.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n 
\nIf that seems daunting to you, it doesn\u2019t have to be. If you\u2019re new to Bible study, start with books of stories, such as the Gospels, Acts, Genesis, Ruth, Esther, Nehemiah. (Don\u2019t get bogged down in the genealogies in Genesis\u2014the point of them is that all of those people in the family lines matter to God, even when they aren\u2019t directly in the lineage of the promised Savior. Likewise, the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew\u2019s Gospel is meant to show that Jesus was a descendant of David and Abraham, as the prophecies had promised.)
\nI truly believe that the reason Acts 10:15 hit home for me was that I was consistently in the Word of God, seeking to wrestle with God in a living relationship. It wasn\u2019t a thrilling encounter every day, but by sticking with it diligently, day after day, the groundwork was laid for a significant breakthrough.<\/p>\n
\n

Karen Lee-Thorp<\/strong> is the author of several books and over a hundred Bible study guides, including the LifeChange<\/em> Bible study series<\/a>. Each study walks you through a book of the Bible with questions, commentaries, and activities designed to nurture a life-changing encounter with God\u2019s Word. Former senior editor at NavPress, Karen is currently a freelance writer living in California.
\nDiscussion Starters<\/u><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What do you learn about God\u2019s character from Karen\u2019s personal story?<\/li>\n
  2. How does Karen\u2019s approach to Bible reading compare to your own? Why?<\/li>\n
  3. How can you apply this story to your life\u2026 today\u2026 this week?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Resources<\/u>
    \n    LifeChange: the Book of Acts<\/em><\/a> by The Navigators
    \n    Trusting God<\/em><\/a> by Jerry Bridges<\/em><\/p>\n

    [lab_subscriber_download_form download_id=20]<\/div>\n

    \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [maxbutton id=”1″ ] Some years ago I was at the front end of dealing with a history of childhood sexual abuse. I was seeing a counselor and getting support from friends, but I still felt lost and defiled. This was … <\/p>\n

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