The Whole Picture

Romans 12:12 NIV

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

In a world of short films, movies, and videos on Youtube, we can watch a constant bombardment of favorite clips and snippets of films.  Imagine the difference between our time now and the time in the 1920s to 1940s when people had to go to a movie theater in a large city to watch the news or to watch a movie.  For example, movie producers give you movie trailers as a means to get you interested in a film.  Take the first image in this post.  How many can say for certain what it is without looking at the second picture in this post?

Each verse we study is like watching a clip of a full featured film on Youtube.  To get the whole picture about the verse we have to look at the chapter and the text from which the verse is clipped.  To get a larger picture we have to begin studying the Bible in its entirety get a full picture of what the text is saying.

Take our verse for today.  I can give you three simple things for today from it:

• Joyful in hope - Our hope comes from Christ as the Savior of mankind who paves the way for us into eternity.  That's something to rejoice about.
• Patient in affliction - Sometimes we react too fast to our circumstances and miss larger opportunities to share God's love or let God help us through the problem.  Sometimes our impatiences gets in the way of God's greatness.  Our patience just may lead someone into a relationship with God.
• Faithful in prayer - Prayer is a time for us to speak with God.  Just like in any relationship, God likes hearing from us.  But He doesn't want empty prayers.  When you speak with your spouse or best friend, do you only quote songs and verse?  In the military we were told what we were allowed to say and when we were allowed to speak - our relationship with God is not this way.

Put this interpretation in with the rest of Romans 12, and we begin to see a bigger picture about how Christians are to act.  Take this alone and we only get a snippet of God's intentions for us.  Too many people are living off of snippets.  Too many people take one or two verses and that becomes their whole theology or their whole reason for rejecting God.

Try something this week.  Try reading a few verses of Scripture at a time and pray about them. Better still, commit to reading the whole Bible or the New Testament in one year (there are plenty of reading schedules that can aid you in this task).  Start getting a bigger picture and see the whole film instead of only snippets.

For 2014, my goal is to continue this daily devotional and resume my study of Matthew.  Hope you are having a fantastic Christmas.  There will not be a post tomorrow.  Enjoy time with family and God Bless.