You’ve laced up your boots, strapped on your backpack, and headed down a well-worn and familiar path. Before seeing them, you can picture every tall tree, mossy boulder, and narrow stream. You smile when you see your own boot prints etched in the dirt along the way. You know the trail by heart because you’ve been there many times. Yet, sometimes, chasing an old familiar rabbit down an old familiar trail leads to a new and unexpected adventure.
Sunday afternoon, a new friend invited Ron and me to a small gathering to listen to a presentation by the CEO of Biblica. If you enjoy reading the Bible on your phone, you can most likely thank Biblica. They have a vision to “see the Bible be used by God to redeem the lost, restore the broken, and inspire the body of Christ to be a community of hope for the world.” (For more information about this extraordinary and highly effective ministry, go to www.biblica.com.)
“To see the Bible used by God to redeem the lost.” That phrase ran alongside the new rabbit I was chasing.
Every morning, I wipe the sleep from my eyes, lace my cup with coffee, strap on my Bible and notebook, and head down a well-worn and familiar path. I’ve traveled this path enough to picture what’s on the next page before I turn it. I smile at the ink prints I’ve left there before. Many of the words I know by heart. Yet, sometimes, when a never-noticed rabbit hops by, I have to start the chase.
Arriving at John 3:5 set me on a quest that has convicted and motivated me more than anything else in a while. It comes in Jesus’ late-night conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus said, “I speak an eternal truth: Unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you will never enter God’s kingdom.” That phrase “born of water” stood at attention on my path. I knew what I had been taught long ago, but I also knew there was a wide range of beliefs about that phrase. Some think being “born of water” refers to:
- Physical birth after the mother’s water breaks,
- Being regenerated by the Holy Spirit,
- Receiving the water of cleansing prophesied in Ezekiel 36:25-28, or
- Being baptized in water.
However, as I read on, my mind combined the apostle John’s description of Jesus in chapter 1 with what I remembered reading in other passages. In chapter 1, John referred to Jesus as THE WORD. Paul said in Ephesians 5:25-27 that Christ gave up His life for the church to make us holy and pure. He cleansed us by WASHING US WITH THE WATER OF THE WORD OF GOD. Wait a minute! The WATER of the Word? Could “born of water” be that simple? Are we reborn when Jesus washes us clean with the water of His Word and fills us with His Spirit? James sure thought so. He wrote, “God was delighted to give us birth by the truth of his infallible Word so that we would fulfill his chosen destiny for us and become the favorite ones out of all creation!” (James 1:18 TPT) Peter said it even more plainly, “For through the eternal and living Word of God you have been born again.” (1 Peter 1:23 TPT)
Later in the book of John, Jesus tells the woman at the well, “If you drink from Jacob’s well, you’ll be thirsty again, but if anyone drinks the living water I give them, they will never be thirsty again. For when you drink the water I give you, it becomes a gushing fountain of the Holy Spirit, flooding you with endless life!” (John 4:13-14 TPT)
“Then on the most important day of the feast, the last day, Jesus stood and shouted out to the crowds— ‘All you thirsty ones, come to me! Come to me and drink! Believe in me so that rivers of living water will burst out from within you, flowing from your innermost being, just like the Scripture says!’” (John 7:37-38 TPT)
I realize I’m getting a little nerdy here, so forgive me. There are two Greek words for “Word”. Rhema means the spoken word, while logos means the written word. Jesus’ words give us life. His WRITTEN words (logos) in the pages of Scripture have the power to wash us clean, remake us, and sustain us. The Holy Spirit lives in those who have been reborn through the washing of the Word. He continues to teach us by SPEAKING (rhema) to our hearts when we listen.
Jesus tried to wash the Pharisees’ hearts clean and give them life, but they insisted on staying dry. He expressed to them another eternal truth. “Whoever cherishes my words and keeps them will never experience death.” (John 8:51 TPT)
Toward the end of His earthly life, Jesus told His beloved disciples, “The words I have spoken over you have already cleansed you.” (John 15:3 TPT) Conviction from the Word and the Spirit brings us to repentance so that we can be cleansed of all our sins and have life to the full. Staying in the Word and listening to the Spirit keeps our surrendered hearts clean.
You may wonder why I’ve chased this rabbit. That’s perfectly fine. The truth is, I’ve been convicted. Over 1 billion people in the world do not have the Word of God to read in their language. How will they be washed in the water of the Word and be reborn or benefit from the voice of the Holy Spirit? Thankfully, Biblica has partnered with illumiNations and is making great strides to alleviate this drought. They project that by 2033 the Bible will be accessible to all people.
What has convicted me most is how often I take for granted the numerous copies of the Bible I have in my house and how long it took me to begin reading just one of them all the way through. I taught Sunday school for years without having read the whole book. I knew all the children’s stories. I could even hold my own in an adult class, but I had never read the entire book that has become most precious to me. I talk with so many other Christians who have never read the whole Bible. I certainly don’t judge them. But I do wonder why. “The Bible, used by God, can redeem the lost, restore the broken, and inspire the body of Christ to be a community of hope for the world.” Let this inspire us all to wipe the sleep from our eyes, fill our cups with the Holy Spirit, strap on our Bibles and notebooks, and head down that old path until we find another rabbit to chase. We might find that we aren’t the ones chasing, we’re being led!
