The Lord has been really impressing on my heart what it means to take my time to really get to know Him. Most of the time when I read my Bible, I’ll read through a chapter or several chapters at a time, with several verses jumping out at me, sometimes writing these verses down, but I would never take the time to meditate on one verse or even one phrase.
The Lord has been putting it on my heart to SLOW down and meditate, taking the time to think about who He is, what is on HIS heart. Recently I just took the first verse in the book of Revelation- “ The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John,”
At first I would just think, cool, got it- ok next verse. But instead of moving on- I just stopped and then started reading again.
“The revelation of Jesus Christ….” Wow just think about that one for a minute. the revelation OF Jesus Christ. So this book of Revelation is all about the man who is also God, it is the revealing of Him, His nature, His personhood, HIS desire, His purpose, His love. It’s all about HIM.
Recently in one of our core teaching sessions we learned a cool acronym to help us meditate on scripture.
RWSSP Read, Write, Say, Sing, Pray.
As we Read the word, Write it out, Say it out loud, Sing it and Pray it, it begins to really get ingrained into our very being. It becomes alive in us. It becomes a part of us. We are less likely to forget it, and more likely to live it.
This method for me is very helpful in memorizing scripture, I'm not only just trying to remember what it says but also what it means.
When thinking about the first phrase of the first verse of Revelation, It leads me to look at every passage in revelation that describes Jesus. Just the first chapter alone describes Jesus as "the faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, ruler of kings, Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood, Alpha and Omega, who is, who was and who is to come, the Almighty, son of man. first and the last, the living One, the one who was dead but now is alive, and the one who holds the keys to death and hades.
His appearance is also described as wearing a white robe with a golden sash, Hair white as wool, like snow, and eyes like flames of fire. His feet are like burnished bronze and voice like the sound of many waters.
Wow! Just stop for a minute and ponder on all of those.... titles and descriptions of Jesus all in one chapter!!! Have you ever seen a portrait of Jesus that depicted the Revelation description of Him? Not me. It might even seem scary to some to imagine Jesus with eyes like flames of fire!
But this is also a description of his personhood, His nature. He describes Himself this way again in Revelation 2:18 and Revelation 19:12
I just have to stand back in awe and say to Jesus," I really don't know you... I mean I think I know you, but I really, really don't know you. But.... I want to know you. "
I feel it is so important to take the time to get to know our LORD. In a marriage relationship, it is so important to build your relationship with your spouse. In order to have a good solid marriage you have to spend time with each other, talk to each other and think about one another. If you don't really know your spouse or even have a desire to get to know them, you will have a very distant and frustrating relationship. Its the same way with God. We need to take the time to think about Him, listen to His word, read it, meditate on it, talk to Him about it, and ask Him questions about it. We have this big, giant God who desires us, little weak human beings to discover who He is. And He loves it when we set our hearts to seek after Him.
It's so much fun, getting to know Him, it's the most amazing, exhillerating experience ever, because it's what we were made to do! And it's what we will be doing for all eternity, it takes that long to get to know our God!
