“And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:20-21
A friend in high school asked me once, “How do you know God is real?” I said, “Because he changes lives.” She was surprised by my answer. So, I explained how the God of the universe comes to each of us personally when we ask forgiveness for our rebellion against him. I shared, “When we believe his son conquered death so we could live, and confess we need his help, then the Holy Spirit comes and changes our hearts. It happened to me and to others I know. This is how I know God is real.”
It is a mystery. It is miraculous, how the Divine intervenes in the hearts of men. The Bible is a collection of writings given to men by the Holy Spirit. Each of the 40 writers had their own personalities and style and wrote in their own time and culture. They wrote in the space of over 1,400 years, recording how God acted in peoples’ lives, changed them and showed them how to live (Hebrews 1:1). It is amazing there is a book with so many authors yet with one message, one story, one unified theme. The revelation to each human author depended on the trustworthiness of God’s divine character (John 16:13). Their inspiration depended on God’s control of the human divine process (Galatians 6:11). This is the Holy Spirit superseding. This is Peter saying, “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
The Bible continues to give us a platform to interact with God. It validates history. It’s his conversation with us and he invites us into it. The Bible still does what it did in generations past. Men are different but God is always the same. We can still be carried along by the Holy Spirit. Pastor Ryan has shared spiritual practices during our Ethos series on how we can put ourselves in places where God can speak to us and through us (solitude, fasting, pray, worship, etc). Choose one of those practices to do today so the Holy Spirit is given opportunity. Let the Divine have his way in your human space.
By Donna Burns
