Good morning, Refresh friends! It gives me great pleasure to introduce one of my dearest friends, Jean Wilund, as our guest blogger today. Jean is a brilliant writer, deep scholar, and lover of God and His Word. She’s written a fabulous new Bible study that you’ll learn about at the end of her post, but before that, be prepared to be challenged and inspired to study the Bible for life transformation.
If you want to capture children’s attention, you may have to write a silly rhyme.
Let’s follow the footsteps of Jesus. Let’s see where they will lead.
Let’s follow the footsteps of Jesus. Come follow along with me.
Will they go up? Or will they go down?
Will they stop? Or turn around?
I can’t wait to know where they will go.
Come follow His footsteps with me.
I wrote this preschool rhyme to prepare the children in the Dayschool for what we’d learn about Jesus in our Bible study that day.
Would we see His footsteps lead Him up a mountain to pray or be transfigured with a glimpse of His glory? Or down a mountain to rescue people who were like sheep without a shepherd?
Would He stop to heal a blind man who cried for mercy? Or turn around to walk through an angry crowd who didn’t believe the truth of who He is?
Wherever Jesus’s footsteps led, he revealed more about Himself so they (and we) may know and believe Him. My goal in telling children Bible stories was the same. It wasn’t to make my class into “good little children,” but to magnify Christ before them.
When we study the Bible, let’s follow Jesus’s footsteps and let His Word magnify Him before our eyes.
The Goal: Spiritual Transformation
The purpose of reading and studying the Bible isn’t behavioral transformation but spiritual transformation through knowing and loving Christ—His glorious character, nature, and ways.
For those who belong to Christ, truly knowing Him always leads to truly loving Him. This kind of love changes us and flows through our actions.
What we love best is what transforms us most.
Consider young children of loving parents. They love and delight in pleasing their parents because they know and believe in their goodness and love. Eventually, though, love for their sin will overrule and out-master even their love for their parents. It’s a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless. Sin rules and reigns in every heart from birth (Romans 3:23). Until we belong to Christ.
Apart from Christ, sin eventually takes us where it wants us to go (Ephesians 2:3). Where it wants us to go most is far from God. But when we place our faith in Him, He brings us out of death and into life. He breaks sin’s power over us and fills us with His Spirit. We are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
And yet, the battle continues.
Why do our lives not faithfully project the internal transformation we received in Christ?
Why do we ever doubt His power, succumb to fear, and too often love our sin more than God?
What can we do? What hope do we have?
God’s Word Is the Cure
Jesus gave us the answer to our struggle when He said, “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free” (John 8:32) and also when He prayed, “Sanctify them by the Truth. Your Word is truth” (John 17:17). Peter further explained the source of true transformation—it’s “through the knowledge of Him [Christ]” (2 Peter 1:3).
It shouldn’t surprise any Christian that God’s Word is the way to truly know Him. But it surprised me.
From my teen years to my mid-30’s, I regularly read the Bible—or more accurately, parts of the Bible. Especially the New Testament. I wanted to learn how to be the best Christian possible. But I failed. A lot.
Eventually, out of desperation to be free of sin’s relentless assaults (and my regrettable weakness), I turned to God’s Word. To all of it.
I determined to read the whole Bible, and to read it with a new goal: to see God on every page.
And oh, how I found Him!
God on Every Page
On every page of Scripture, I saw God as if for the first time. What I saw overwhelmed me.
I’d known Him as my Savior, but what I saw of Him as I read through the whole Bible displayed time and again a God even more trustworthy and powerful than I’d understood. God’s Word transformed my faith beyond anything I’d dared hope.
It became clear that my former Bible reading (and study) had been incomplete. It had ignored the Old Testament and had set the wrong goal.
I’d focused on knowing the law rather than the Law Giver. Through reading His Word, I’d sought to transform my behavior rather than seeking for His Word to read my heart and mind and transform them by its power (Hebrews 4:12).
Truth, Not Ink
The black and white (and sometimes red) ink on every page of the Bible doesn’t magically make us into upright and holy people. Ink is powerless. The power is in the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts and minds through the truths the ink declares.
When we know the glorious character, nature, and ways of our great, holy, merciful, and gracious God and Savior, Jesus Christ, peace, joy, and every other spiritual fruit flow through our lives. The more we know and love Him, the more we’ll find we’re transformed.
But we can never truly know and love our God and Savior apart from His Word.
Seek the Lord, my friend, on every page and follow Him wherever He leads. He will satisfy your every longing like child at peace in her Father’s arms—when we truly believe what He’s said.
God’s Word pierces the darkness of our hearts and minds and captivates our attention. The Truth reveals He’s more worthy and glorious than our minds can imagine and breaks our transfixed gaze off sin’s allure. He overwhelms all other desires and sends our love and trust in Him soaring high on wings like eagles.
Discovering God’s Word
A deep passion to know and love God through His Word is why I read and study the Bible every day, and it’s why I write. It inspired my latest Bible study, Discovering God’s Word: A 6-Week Introduction to the Transformational Bible Study Method with the GOSPEL of MARK.
This unique study is two studies in one. It’s a study on how to study the Bible for transformation and a study of the Gospel of Mark. In other words, it’s a study on how to study the Bible by studying the Gospel of Mark.
In in each lesson, I share a Bible study technique, which we then use to study Mark. We follow Jesus through Mark’s gospel to see what He reveals about Himself, our great God and Father, and the power of the Holy Spirit. The truths we study will transform our hearts—if we’ll believe.
For more information about Discovering God’s Word and to download free resources, go to JeanWilund.com/DiscoveringGodsWord
Meet Jean
Jean Wilund is passionate about helping others fall more in love with God and His Word. She’s an author, speaker, and grateful wife to Larry. They live in South Carolina and are members of Grace Bible Church in Lexington. Check out her other books, her podcast, and her many free resources at JeanWilund.com.
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