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Anchored in the Word

This Monday (2/1/2021) begins a four part series of blogposts about being anchored in relationship with God. I recently finished reading through the book of Acts. In Acts 27, Paul and his companions were shipwrecked. During one particular night of a storm they faced, they let down the anchors because they knew they were near shore.

And fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come.

Acts 27:29

I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life that I’ve prayed for daylight. There have been times that I’ve prayed just to make it through the storm. There have been times that I’ve prayed to get by to the next day.

It is instructive that the sailors let the anchors out when they wanted to slow the drift of the ship in the storm. That’s what an anchor is for. In some cases an anchor keeps a ship in place in a body of water. In other cases (like the one above) an anchor isn’t strong enough to keep a ship in place, but it is strong enough to slow the ship down in a storm.

As I considered this story God reminded me that in the storms and trials of life, I needed to be anchored. I need to be anchored in my relationship to God.

Now, ultimately it matters far more that God has a hold on us than it matters that we have a hold on God. God is the One keeping us (1 Peter 1:4-5), God is the One saving us (Eph. 2:8-9), God is the One giving us rest (Matt. 11:28-30, and God is the One caring for us (1 Peter 5:7).

But with that said, we are responsible for seeking God, for trusting God, and for depending on God. We cannot expect to experience God’s strength, peace, and hope if we neglect the spiritual disciplines that God has provided for us to know him.

In these four blogposts I’m going to reflect on one spiritual anchor each week that keeps us in right fellowship with the Father. Today’s post reminds us to be anchored in God’s Word.

There is nothing more important for your spiritual life than spending time in God’s Word. God’s Word is vitally important as an anchor for our souls.

We need the anchor of God’s Word because when we read God’s Word, we are privileged to experience God’s own thoughts.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-10

With his Word, God spoke creation into existence. With his Word, God spoke life into man. With his Word, God became flesh (Jesus is the Logos, Word of God).

When we read, hear, study, memorize, and meditate on God’s Word we are thinking God’s thoughts. That very act serves as an anchor for our souls to the One True God who alone is Lord and King. It is God speaking to us that leads us to worship and know him.

God must speak to us before we have any liberty to speak to him. He must disclose to us who he is before we can offer him what we are in acceptable worship. The worship of God is always a response to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our worship.

John Stott, The Contemporary Christian, 174.
We need the anchor of God’s thoughts because his Word is guaranteed to last.

The grass withers, the flower fades,
    but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:8

Peter quotes this passage in his first epistle. Peter was reflecting on believers who are facing trials to grow and be strengthened in the Word of God.

There are many things in this world to distract us, disrupt us, or defeat us. But remember this. All those trials, difficulties, challenges, and circumstances have a shelf life. One day they will not be. For that matter, one day your job will not be, your cell phone will not be, the internet will not be, etc.

But the Word of the Lord will last forever.

When we read, hear, study, memorize, and meditate on God’s Word we are thinking thoughts that will stand forever. Being anchored in the Word of God is being anchored to something that is guaranteed to be around for eternity.

According to research, there is nothing better for your spiritual maturity than God’s Word.

Our study of churchgoers included the measurement of more than sixty factors characteristic of biblical spiritual development… Our statistician applied sophisticated procedures to our data to produce a rank-ordered list of correlations. The number one factor, or characteristic, most correlated to the highest maturity scores is the practice of “reading the Bible.” I almost had to laugh when I saw this. Sometimes we complicate things. The simple discipline of reading the Bible has a major impact on Christians.

Brad Waggoner, The Shape of Faith to Come, 68.

So if you want to find an anchor for your soul that will stabilize you anytime (but especially in trying times), read the Word of God.

Here are some recommendations for being anchored in the Word of God:

  • Read the Bible daily. If you aren’t reading the Bible regularly, start today. Read a chapter a day. Or pick a Bible reading plan. I use the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan on my ESV Bible app.
  • Study the Bible regularly. Take some time at least once a week to dive deeper into God’s Word. Maybe take the passage of Scripture your pastor preached and read it over again. Think on it. Look up the passage in a commentary, and study the Bible.
  • Memorize the Bible consistently. We have challenged our church to memorize at least one verse of Scripture each month. For January 2021, our verse is Psalm 90:12. For February 2021, our verse is 1 Peter 2:24. You can see both verses below. I challenge you right now. Memorize them.
  • Pray the Bible intentionally. One of the most spiritually helpful books I’ve read is Don Whitney’s Praying the Bible. I would commend it to you. But you don’t have to read it to pray the Bible. As you read Scripture, use the stories, commands, convictions, insights, and lessons that you read to guide how you pray for those on your prayer list. We’ll spend more time on the subject of prayer in a couple of weeks.

Here are two verses I challenge you to memorize. If you do, you will be glad you did because you are memorizing words and truths that will never, ever, not even in a million years, go away.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 

1 Peter 2:24

Photo by Simon Abrams on Unsplash

Jesus’ Atoning Work on the Cross

As we enter Jesus’ Passion on our calendars celebrating Palm Sunday, March 29 and Easter, April 5, let’s remember what Jesus did when he went to the cross.

On more occasions than I can count I have uttered the sentence, “Jesus died for our sins.” That Jesus died for our sins is the crux of the gospel. The glory of that sentence, “Jesus died for our sins” is even more meaningful than we often imagine. Jesus’ death atoned for our sins.

The atonement is a theological term meaning the satisfaction of divine justice in Jesus’ act of obedience on the cross.

Theological liberalism is embarrassed by the concept of divine wrath against sin and has avoided a theologically robust definition of the atonement. As Christians, we must grasp the truth of the atonement to better understand the glory of our salvation.

The Bible teaches the penal substitutionary view of the atonement. Don’t be intimidated by these terms. Penal means that we are sinful, and that our sins deserve punishment. Substitutionary means that Jesus took our place when he atoned for our sins by taking the punishment we deserve.

In his excellent book, The Cross of Christ, John Stott underscored the importance of this doctrine.

All inadequate doctrines of the atonement are due to inadequate doctrines of God and humanity. If we bring God down to our level and raise ourselves to his, then of course we see no need for a radical salvation, let alone for a radical atonement to secure it. When, on the other hand, we have glimpsed the blinding glory of the holiness of God and have been so convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit that we tremble before God and acknowledge that we are, namely “hell-deserving sinners,” then and only then does the necessity of the cross appear so obvious that we are astonished we never saw it before.

Stott, Cross, 111

The biblical doctrine of the atonement reminds us of three staggering truths that are deeper than we will ever fully grasp this side of eternity.

  1. God is more holy than we imagine.
  2. We are more sinful than we think.
  3. Jesus loves us more deeply than we deserve.

Only a grasp of what Jesus did on the cross—the doctrine of substitutionary atonement—can prevent spiritual distortions. . . . Only this doctrine keeps us from thinking God is mainly holy with some love or mainly loving with some holiness—but instead [he] is both holy and loving equally, interdependently. Only this view of God makes the spoiled or the neglected into the healthy and the loved.

Tim Keller

The atonement emphasizes God’s wrath against sin. The Bible is full of divine judgment against sin. From Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden, to the flood, to the plagues on Egypt, to the 40 years of wilderness wanderings, to the judgments and exiles upon Israel, to the cross, and through to the judgments described in the book of Revelation, the Bible is a book that declares judgment. Why does God judge so often? Well, God is supremely holy. He is more holy than we can imagine, and his standard for humanity is absolute perfection and holiness.

The other reason the Bible describes God’s judgments so often is that we are sinful. We are more sinful than we’d like to admit. Our motivations, desires, and longings are sinful. Our actions and dreams and words and ways are sinful. We are sinful.

Our sin deserves judgment. Thus, the cross and the penal substitutionary atonement. Jesus took our place, received in his body the punishment for our sins, and satisfied God’s wrath against sin (penal substitutionary atonement). Jesus’ death on the cross shouts loudly the staggering love of God for sinners.

At the cross in holy love God through Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience himself. He bore the judgment we deserve in order to bring us the forgiveness we do not deserve. On the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled. God’s holy love was ‘satisfied.‘

Stott, Cross, 91.

What do we do with this glorious theological truth?

  • Meditate on the holiness of God.
  • Thank God for sending Jesus to take your place.
  • Worship God for the depth of his love.
  • Love God because he so loved you.
  • Follow Christ with your life because this is the only appropriate response to the atonement.

Photo by Luis Vidal on Unsplash