DO not read the Bible through the spectacles of your own feelings, but read God’s word as it is written.
“What does everlasting life mean?” said one to us the other day.
“What it says―everlasting,” was the answer.
“Yes, but what is that?”
“Everlasting.”
“Well, but I do not believe that; I can’t believe it.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because I feel I may be lost yet.”
Our poor friend had his “I feel” spectacles on, and could not see the blessed word of God, everlasting life, through them.
People have all sorts of colored spectacles, which they use when reading the word of God. They never dream of using them when reading an ordinary book, for the simple reason that if they did not read what the writer says, but kept altering his words in their minds as they went on, they would not understand his meaning.
But we must finish our story. Our friend saw this much―that in the word of God it was written, “hath everlasting life,” and he did not believe it in his soul. What was he to do? Read the word through the “I feel” glasses, and not believe what God said, or read the word just as God had spoken it, and feel as a consequence the blessedness of the truth?
By the grace of God, he threw away his “I feel” spectacles, and took God’s word as our God has said it, and now he rests on the word, and not on what he feels about the word. But as the result of faith he feels how blessedly true the word is.
How do you read God’s word? As it is written, taking the very word as the living God has said it, or as you feel or think the words mean?