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How Do You Tell Your Kids Who God Is?

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anton
Jun 23 2008
04:53 pm

Recently I got to talk to an 8 year girl who wants to make profession of faith. The topic of devotions came up. She thought of devotions as learning stuff about God, talking about it with her family, and then praying about what she learned. I took the opportunity to say that actually it’s a conversation. God talks to you, and you talk to God. You have a real relationship with all your friends that way, by talking back and forth with them. So it is with God. You hear him speak to you in his Word (when you read it or hear it preached), and you speak back to him in prayer.

I tihnk we have an unimaginative view of God’s Word. It’s not living and active but dead and irrelevant. We don’t think it does anything. It’s a book, an inanimate object! Is it? Why then does God say it will accomplish the purpose for which he sent it (Isa 55)? Why does Paul say that we hear the voice of Jesus when someone is preaching (Rom 10:14, NAS has right translation). In fact Paul says we can’t hear the voice of Jesus without someone preaching. God is pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe: Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom (secret knowledge that comes if close your eyes and listen real hard), but we preach Christ and him crucified…Christ the power and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:21-24). God’s Word has the same active liveliness as it had when God first said, "Let their be light," and there was. Today God turns the world upside down with his Word, the Holy Spirit working with it to produce the desired effect in the hearts and lives of people. We forget that God’s Word is [i:cad881c126]God’s[/i:cad881c126] Word.