The Ultimate Parable

Every time I use Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, I am both amazed and awed.  I would love to know the history of how this work came into existence.  Who on earth was inspired to begin such a monumental task, and how on earth did he ever believe that it could be done?  I am profoundly grateful that someone did not think this task was impossible, and that he was willing to undertake it.  And I say a prayer of thanksgiving every time I use the reference.

But there is another way of finding things in the Bible, a way for which I have also come to be grateful over the years.  As a child, my family owned some great 12 - volume set of encyclopedias, and whenever I had to look up something for school, I would pull the appropriate volume off the shelf and begin searching for the subject I needed.  As I got close to the target, I would slow down and begin to peruse everything close to the the target word.  It was so much fun 'getting to' my destination, because reading everything close to it was a revelation of things I had not previously learned.  It was as if I had opened a door to a world previously unknown, and it was a magical world to be explored. 

The same is true of the dictionary:  whenever I needed to look up a word, I would go slowly and read words that were close to my target, discovering things I had not previously known.  I would look at the illustrations close by and read their explanations.  Before television was interesting enough to fascinate me, the encyclopedia and the dictionary were worlds to explore.  The electronic age has put much at our fingertips, but it has also eliminated the journey to find what we are looking for. 

Whenever I need to locate something in the Bible today, I can use Strong's Concordance and go immediately to the spot, or, knowing the approximate location of what I need, I can go there and begin a search by paging through things close by.  If I am not the under pressure of a time limit, this is often my preferred search method, because I find so many wonderful and delightful passages while I am looking for the one I want.  And here's the "kicker" in this method:  I cannot tell you how many times the Holy Spirit has shown His pinpoint spotlight on one particular passage while I am searching for another one.  This is for you! is the Voice of the Spirit and the witness in my heart as the words seem to leap off the page.  I was looking for something else, but the Spirit uses the search to show me what I actually need to hear, know, and take to heart at that moment.

Anyone who has ever had that experience knows what I am talking about.  Suddenly, the search comes to a halt, as the Spirit of God begins moving in my heart and mind.  My heart is pierced with the truth that I cannot deny, and my soul weeps at the entrance of Truth.  I recognize the Voice of the Most High, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, and I recognize the Truth of the the One Who "reveals everything I have ever done," in the words of the the woman at the well.  It is a moment when the Holy One confronts my soul; I know Him and He knows me.

This moment of conviction by the Holy Spirit is one of the sweetest moments in my entire history.  It cannot be manufactured, generated by myself, or faked.  I stand before Absolute Truth, and He sees me, just as He saw Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.  I know Him, and He knows me.  Jesus said that when the Comforter comes, "He will convict the world of sin, because they do not know Me."  [To 'know' means to experience, to embrace, to take in, to be united with, to believe and trust in -- not to know in the sense of abstract reasoning.]

To the extent that Jesus does not rule our thoughts, words, and actions, we are in sin -- but our sin is such a part of us that we think it is 'normal,' not sinful.  It takes the Holy Spirit's action to convict us of sin, for us to see it as sin, and He often uses the words of Scripture to reveal to us the mind of God, so that we no longer see things from the natural man, but from the perspective of the man of God, Jesus Christ. 

When we open the pages of Scripture, we think we are "looking things up."  But it is a dangerous journey to undertake if we do not want to be confronted by the Living Christ and the Spirit of the Most High God who is at the same time looking for us.