Cryptology, God’s Word, and 2014

What would you do to gain access to messages that could save a lot of lives? Would you set aside a few things for it? Maybe even Facebook for a period of time, if needed? In our best moments, we’d probably say that we’d be willing to do whatever we needed to do—no matter the cost.

During World War 2, the Allies found themselves in exactly this kind of situation. And they exerted a ton of energy in the area of cryptology to get access to messages that would save a lot of lives. While there were many code and cipher system success stories, some mark out the Allies decryption of the German “Enigma” Cipher, as the most important success. It enabled the Allies to understand enemy messages that helped position them to save what would have been a lot of lost lives. Understanding the right message makes a massive difference.

I admire the creativity, intelligence, and perseverance that it took to create such systems—to acquire these messages. Their efforts are truly amazing. But could you imagine, after all of this fine work was done and the messages were acquired, the Allies ignoring them? How loud would the outcry be amongst the Allied nations if their citizens were to learn that they neglected such important messages?

This, of course, wouldn’t happen. Even with fallible human beings, a failure of this magnitude seems hardly conceivable.

And yet, we see something like this happen year after year amongst us Christians. In the Western world, we don’t have to achieve some super human feat in order to gain access to God’s eternally significant message. We are surrounded by it. In fact, for most of us, we probably have quite a few copies gathering up dust in our homes.

While we affirm the difference God’s Word makes in eternal life and death, we neglect it. We are unfamiliar with it. We are unsure of how to handle it. Sure, we have a lot to do. But so did the Allied forces. Like it would be for them, neglecting the message would be inexcusable. Can we really find tasks that we’d say should replace prioritized time in God’s Word?

As we start the New Year, let’s be a people of the Book. Recent history says that we won’t. We’ll a people of everything but the Book. But let’s not let recent history determine our near future. Let’s draw from the endless, life-transforming, new habit-making grace of Christ, and make the message of Christ the priority for us and our loved ones this year.

Let’s hang Colossians 3:16 over 2014 and be a people who “Let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God.” It’s simple. It’s strategic. Eternal life and death hang in the balance.

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