INTRODUCTION
God’s Word is most impactful when we read it as if God were speaking personally to us as through a love letter. It is so important that as we are reading that we are listening to the Holy Spirit allowing Him to speak to our hearts. As we’ve mentioned God loves to take the Logos Word and make it a rhema Word because faith comes by “hearing.”
(Romans 10:17).
In Luke 24, after His resurrection, Jesus encounters two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They are in despair. As he went through the prophetic Scriptures with them their hearts burned within them with spiritual life and suddenly their eyes were open to recognize that it was Jesus speaking directly to them. (Luke 24:32).
This is exactly what I believe the Lord wants to happen as we are in His Word.
I think of personalizing the Word as putting your name and family in the verse as you read it. I also see it as identifying with it as if you were reading your passport or legal contract from Jesus. This is who Jesus says that I am, this is whAat Jesus says I have and He is for me, and this is what He promises He is going to do, and what I can do through Him. As I mentioned earlier, the Bible is both a script for our life and a description of our DNA. It reveals our divine nature in Jesus. (2 Peter 1:4)
APPLICATION
Here are some examples of how I might personalize God’s Word.
Philippians 4:6-7
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
I, Dale Walker, choose to live and believe it is my inheritance to live without any anxiety in my life. In every situation I go through today, where I would have an opportunity to worry, I instead choose to lift up the feelings I have about that situation and the request I have for God to work in it along with a bold thanksgiving and praise that He is going to take care of it according to His amazing plan. I believe that God is my peace, and peace is the environment and nature of my heart in Christ Jesus. I claim that it is a shield protecting my mind and heart. Just like Jesus slept in the storm, He is living through me in perfect peace about this situation.
Philippians 4:19
“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
I thank You Lord that You are meeting all of Dale Walker’s family’s needs today. I praise You Lord that You are my Jehovah Jireh. I thank You that in Your storehouse of wealth that You have already set aside all that we need. I choose to believe that this empowers me to be extravagantly generous and able to give to others on every occasion. Thank You that I have a nature that loves to give and has faith that I am a channel of God’s generosity. I thank You that those riches in Christ Jesus not only include material provision but spiritual, relational, physical, and emotional abundance as well.