Now that I have your attention, let me share a very real possibility of something that could lead you away from Jesus. It is the Bible!! Now before you throw a fit and have me arrested, just consider what I have to say.
More than anything else, Jesus wants us to have an intimate love relationship with Him. One hazard that we face is to substitute things in place of that love relationship. For example, the action I see in churches over and over again is that people act as though they love their church more than they love Jesus. (That is, people like the way they do church and insist on a lifestyle of church that ignores scriptural mandates to join God in His mission to reach the world for Christ. Their heart-focus has moved from Jesus to the church). In that case, people may substitute what they do in church for their love relationship with Jesus. People have chosen many things to substitute for the personal relationship that we were created for. If we are not careful, the Bible can be one of those substitutions that works against our relationship with God.
The Bible communicates one thing very well—it is a witness to us about Jesus, God’s Son. It points to the Savior. The theme that runs throughout the Bible is Jesus. But, the Bible and the knowledge of the Bible, doesn’t save you. Jesus does.
It appears to me that some (maybe many) have substituted their knowledge of the Bible in place of a love relationship with Jesus. Those that do are treading on dangerous ground. Look what Jesus says in John 5:39-40: “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life: and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life.” Eternal life is found through reading and studying the scriptures, eternal life is not found by knowing what the scriptures say. Many people know what is said in the Bible, but they do not have a personal, intimate relationship with the Lord. They have substituted knowledge for a personal love relationship with God.
Let me put my point another way. Knowledge of the Bible is a means to an end, it is not the end itself. We must know the scriptures and be able to understand what they say to us as followers of Jesus. We must know the scripture to know and have a relationship with Jesus because scripture reveals Jesus in a very perfect way. But, unless we act out the scriptures through a personal relationship with the Lord resulting in obedience to the commands of Christ, we are missing the focus of our spiritual walk with God.
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