What If?

What if we are all "living epistles" as Paul said, living letters (hopefully love letters) that God is writing to be read by those who don't yet know Him? Or what if we are each "a word from heaven" (as Jason Upton puts it in song) and therefore none of us shall return to Him void? (meaning each of us will accomplish that for which we were sent or created)...."So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it." (Isa. 55:11) Doesn't the Bible say that God "spoke" the world into existence?

OK, so what if the Bible is actually a story book? What if it is a book filled with "lore" (acquired knowledge) and it was given to us for the purpose of reading stories about the lives (words?) that have gone before us....in order to learn how God intervened in these lives, and about the Author and His character (He is good!!)? And what if the story isn't "history" but rather His Story....and His Story continues...in each of us? What if His Story is still being written in you and in me?

What if we are all a part of His Story, but some of us just haven't had our eyes opened to this fact and can't read God's story....yet?
What if those who don't yet know about His Story need to read us to find out about Him? What are they reading when they look at us? Are our lives a good read? Do people read us and want to know the Author?What if this story, His Good News Story about His great love for mankind (remember He created us in His image....so He must think we're really cool) is still going on, making us all part of the current story?
What if God wants us to enter into His Story, so that we can live with purpose, and know what our "character's" role is?
Have we taken this Book, the Scriptures, and made it into an idol, when it was intended as the greatest ongoing Love Story of all time?!

Maybe we are each a chapter in God's big "Book of Life". What if, by eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve read ahead in the story, they jumped ahead and that's what got them into trouble? What was Satan's downfall? Wasn't he trying to re-write God's story and make it about himself? Yikes, don't we do that all the time?
We have been plopped right smack in the middle of an action-packed adventure. But do you see it in the lives of people who's eyes haven't been opened to His Story?
"This is the Chapter of John Doe's Life on a Bar Stool" or This is the Chapter of Jane's Life on the Sofa in front of Reality TV" don't seem like chapters worth reading, and sure don't reflect a great Author!
If my life and your life is being recorded as a chapter in His book, what do we want our chapter to be titled? That's something to think about right there!

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us....." (John 1:14)

What if we don't fight evil with the written word, but with the Word (Himself) living....and loving....through us?
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) What is John saying here? That the Bible was there, in the beginning of time? Or that the Story has always been, Jesus, the Word;  God's story lived through His Son Jesus.....was there in the beginning, in the mind and imagination of God! "He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together." (Col. 1:17) And so we read the story that has always been, and of which we are now a part because we were born into it, and we learn about the Author, and about love because He originated it!

What if the Truth that sets us free is a Man, not a book? "You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free"....."I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life...." What if the Good Book is a Great Story about True Life?
What if this amazing Story is a prequel and a sequel all in one? (prequel: a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting. sequel: a narrative or other work that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work.)

What if the "Word" cannot be contained in the pages of a book? What if instead of worrying so much about what the Bible says, "Is it in the Word?", we remember that Jesus is the Word. "Everything came into existence through him. Not one thing that exists was made without him." (John 1:3) What if rather than looking things up in the pages of a book, we spend more time with the Person who wrote it? Is a book greater than the author? What if the reason the Bible was written in the first place was to lead us to Him?