How are you doing with the review? Have you had the chance to sit down and take it all in, maybe even reading it a couple times. Good! Pastor John at this point in his teaching paused and said, "I sensed that we need to remain once more soaking in Lectio, and seeking to make it a part of the Spirit's tool in our hearts." Lets read on and see what that involves.

"Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (Proverbs 4:23)
Listen to what John Ortberg says about purity and God's Word:

A Transformed Heart, Mind & Life

It is a frightening thing to begin to see the truth about your own mind and its need for cleansing. This is why Martin Luther used to spend so much time in the confessional. He often spent several hours there for several days in a row. His fellow monks used to ask him what he was doing. (After all, he lived in a monastery. What did he have to confess: short- sheeting the other monks? chanting off-key?)

But Luther was frightened by his own cleverness at self-justification. He knew that the first commandment is to love God with heart, soul, body, and strength - and he couldn't even keep this injunction for five minutes.

Imagine having a mind cleansed of all the debris that blocks our best intentions. Imagine if each time you saw another person your first thought was to pray for him or bless her. Imagine what it would be like if, any time you were challenged or anxious, your reflexive response would be to turn to God for strength. Imagine, if you're a married man, that whenever you looked at any woman other than your wife you would see her as if she were your sister or your daughter. Imagine genuinely wishing your "enemies" well.

That's what it would be to have the mind "washed by the Word." This is what it means to "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." This is how we are to be transformed by Scripture. This is our great need.

So the Bible is to help us learn how to live in the kingdom of God here and now. It teaches us how to morph. It is indispensable for this task. I have never known someone leading a spiritually transformed life who had not been deeply saturated in Scripture.

Paul writes about this role of Scripture in this famous statement: "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God might be proficient, equipped for every good work."

Paul does not say that the purpose of knowing Scripture is to enable us, when we go to heaven, to get a 100 score on the entrance exam. He says the purpose is for us to become equipped for good works. Or, to put it another way, it is for us to become transformed into the kind of people from whom goodness flows like an unceasing stream of water.

Buzzed or Drunk?

I made a statement that we shouldn't read God's Word just to get a 'buzz.' I apologize to those of you who I confused with this statement, because intimacy with God can be had in a moment, and it DOES involve all of our emotions and passions.But what I was trying to speak to was the taking for granted of that relationship, not disparaging the emotional side of it. On the contrary, we are called to be 'drunk' with His Spirit! In the imagery of 'chewing the cud' I was thinking of sticking His Word in our mouth for a moment and just spitting it out - as opposed to letting it's juices go deep into our soul.

The hope in all this process of meditation is not that we will become more informed, but that we will become people who live from the very depth of Jesus' heart.

Jesus said that we have not because we ask not. As you read and pray and live this week tell God that you want to be changed, that you want His Word to wash through your life and purify you. And then watch . . . and expect. Expect Him to speak as never before.