I don't have a great segue here, so let's get to it. A physical bath is great, but a spiritual bath is even better. Jesus was more concerned about and spoke regularly of the cleanliness of the inner man and not the outside of a man. But how do we get a spiritual bath? I'm so glad you asked.
In Ephesians 5:25-26 it says "25) ...just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26) so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27) that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless..."
I'd like to underscore the point of this washing of water with the word... or more accurately put, THE WORD. Meaning the WORD as in Jesus Christ. How do we wash in him? Through the Word of God - the Bible. By reading it. Meditating or thinking about it throughout the day. By allowing it to wash over our minds, changing them as necessary, cleansing us from all unrighteousness. Reminding us of its eternal truths and by comparison our own wretchedness of which we must allow Jesus to clean up daily.
This is the only way in which we will be taken as 2 Corinthians 3:18 says from "glory to glory" "being transformed into the image of Christ as we behold his glory". As we look into the Word, beholding the glory - the beauty of the gift of God in Christ - and allow it to wash over us like we would physically do in a bath, we are transformed. Cleaned up. Made new. Our minds are changed. Our attitudes adjust. We become different. Full of joy. Peace rests in our hearts. These are just a few of the benefits of a "washing".
Having these things in mind, it is no surprise to me that one of the simplest ways to read the Bible is through a process whose acronym is SOAP. This particular plan takes you through daily reading, challenges you to meditate on, and then pray through God's Word in order to answer "how will I be different today because of what I have read?"
Answering that question is important to us as disciples because as DISCIPLES we are to always be asking two things: 1.) What is Jesus saying to me today? 2.) What am I doing in response to what he said to me today? One is about listening and the other is about responding. Doing. Get up off the couch and living out the Word of God. Both are active and both will require faith.
My goal with this blog post today is to walk you through SOAPing and then to give you my SOAP from today's reading as an example of how simple it is to be "washed by water through the Word." In order to SOAP you will need a Bible (New International Version is recommended) and a journal or note pad of some sort. The journal is used to write down the SOAP elements which I will cover now.
Before I even begin the process of SOAP, I always pray. Always. When you approach God's Word with humility asking the Holy Spirit to teach you, guide you, convict you, change you... Guess what - He will do just that. We must learn to rely on God's leading by the Spirit he gave us into all truth. A prideful person will skip this step believing they know how to read the Bible. But humility says we must approach the Word knowing our limitations, distractedness, finiteness in comparison to God's limitlessness, wisdom, and infiniteness. Acknowledging His glory, power, and ability to reveal to us what we need for life is an act of reverential worship. So begin with prayer. Always.
S - This is for SCRIPTURE. Most people when they do their Bible reading close their eyes and flip the Bible open to a page. Whatever they open to is where they begin reading. I know I used to to do this. But reading your Bible needs to be more intentional than that. I would highly recommend getting a read through the Bible in a year plan. This way your daily reading is intentional and directed with a goal of reading the whole Bible in a time period that shouldn't be too overwhelming for even a beginner Bible reader. I've provided some recommendations at the end of this article for you to use.
Once you have a plan in place to follow for your reading selection, the challenge is to find one verse - not a chapter, not several verses - just one verse that speaks to your heart. The Holy Spirit is a teacher, among many other things. He will guide you to a verse that is for you. Sometimes the verse you find will be one you will share with others throughout the day or week to encourage them in the Lord.Other times, it is just for you. Whatever the Holy Spirit shows you, I promise He has a purpose for it in your life.
Have a pen or highlighter with you as you read and underline each verse that stands out to you. By the time you finish reading your daily passages, you may have several verses underlined. Choose just one for the day and that is your SCRIPTURE. Write the verse and its reference out entirely in your journal or note pad. This is essentially your daily answer to the question of "What is Jesus saying to me today?"
Here's my SCRIPTURE from today's SOAP:
1 Peter 2:23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to Him who judges justly.
To be honest, there are days I read my daily selections and I don't find a verse that stands out to me. On those days, I pray and then read again. The Bible is rich, alive, and full of truths we need. Sometimes in order to find your "gem" for the day, you must be willing to dig again. I promise you on those days that you do dig again, that it will be worth your investment of time.
O - This is for OBSERVATION. Write down in your journal what you see happening in this verse. Read your verse and then read it again. Think about its elements. There is a writer of this verse - who was he writing to? What kind of verbiage does he use to paint a picture? Is there a word that you need to know the meaning of before you grasp the verse? Then Google it.What is the history of these people? Why would the writer write this verse? What were they dealing with or going through? What is their world like? Are they under political oppression? What does their surroundings look like?
You feel the verse. Take in all of its elements. Try to understand what it is saying. See what the writer saw. Then put the verse in your own words and write that down. This is what you OBSERVE that the verse is saying. Writing it out forces us to comprehend what that verse is saying and just echoes back the question of "What is Jesus saying to me today?".
There is not necessarily a wrong or right observation. That is a comparison trap. As a student, you must trust the Holy Spirit to lead you. Sometimes it is the simplest things that will make a difference in your life. I find that the newest students who actually put their heart into this and try it out usually have the most profound observations.
Here's my OBSERVATION from today's SOAP:
Jesus didn't respond to hate with hate. Instead, he responded in love by controlling or rather disciplining himself. And he did so by trusting his reputation, his body, and spirit to God who is faithful and claims justice and vengeance for Himself on our behalf.
A - APPLICATION is our next step. After writing what you see in the verse, you now move to what you will do in response to it. Remember our two questions? The second one says, "What am I doing in response to what Jesus is saying to me today?"
This becomes your action plan for living in response to the SCRIPTURE. Every verse has an implication for our lives. Your OBSERVATION will reveal a pattern set forth for us on how we are to live. Sometimes what the verse says is difficult for us to handle. It is like a light being turned on to wake us up in the morning. It is bright, it hurts our eyes, and we hate it, begging for the person that turned it on to turn it off. We aren't ready for it yet. These are all truths about how we feel and the light of the Word will reveal those things in us. When we encounter truth, sometimes it will cause us to cover our eyes, to turn away from it, or deny it.
God is ok with us responding in such a way to say, "Hey! This sucks! I'm not ready for this truth. It means I have to give up something or do something I don't want to yet." Truth is, He knew we would respond that way to the truth and in His grace for us we find Him patiently waiting for us to embrace the truth. Once we embrace it, we make a decision to be different because of it. We apply it.
So consider your OBSERVATION and its implications for your life. Write out how you are to live or who you must be in response to it that is in contrast to who you are today or how you are currently carrying on in your life.
Here's my APPLICATION from today's SOAP:
There is peace to be had in trusting in God - especially in things like suffering unjustly, because violence just begets more violence. But love changes things. And it is out of love that I get to respond to my attackers because I can trust God to take care of the details.
P - This is the most powerful part of SOAP - PRAYER. Most often times, the truths we encounter will be beyond our current state to deal with them appropriately. The light of these truths will reveal weaknesses, sin, doubt and unbelief, among so many other things that are within us. It is is ok to not be ok. But it isn't ok to stay that way. So we pray that God helps us.
When necessary, we pray for forgiveness and the strength to withstand temptation. At times we just respond to it with praise and a desire for more of Jesus. But mostly, we pray for God to help us by His Holy Spirit to be different today because of what we have read. It is a request for grace to do what is written in our APPLICATION. God is faithful to answer these kinds of prayers because they are humble.
Our OBSERVATIONS and APPLICATIONS often reveal us in light of Jesus. They declare His majesty and reveal our filth. It is cleansing. It is refreshing. Here we find strength. Here is God glorified - right in the middle of our weakness. It is beautiful.
So write out your prayer. I always begin my prayer by addressing God as my Father - because He is. He loves me and has made me His son through Jesus. So I remind myself and position myself as His son in prayer. Then I am just honest. I confess sin. I repent and seek forgiveness. I ask Him to change me. To lead me. Guide me. Convict me of sin. Search me. But most of all to make me like His son Jesus. For there is no better example for me in this life. Jesus is all.
Be sure to talk to God like you'd talk to me. Just tell Him what is on your heart in response to your SOAP. There's no reason to get all King James on him and start using THOU and ART and THUSLY... if you mainly speak slang... then talk slang to Him. He knows you... He knows all about you... He sees all, knows all... You might as well come clean. Humble yourself as you pray. When you do, God will lift you up.
Once you have written out your prayer, pray it out loud. Pray it several times that day. For me, the more I pray the prayer, the more refined I make it by the end of the day. The more personal and deep it becomes to me. It's like I'm breaking up the earth for seeds of God's Word to be planted by plowing my heart each time I pray it. So pray it. And mean it.
Here's my PRAYER from today's SOAP:
Father, make me like Jesus who knew You, knew what You said, knew Your reputation and kept that in view at all times and through everything He encountered. I want to be like that so I can live a life of love for others with total abandon of self, trusting in You completely - even in suffering unjustly.
Simple. Straightforward. Easy. You can do this! You can be washed and changed daily! Now take all of this one step further. Think about your SOAP throughout the day. Write it down on a post it note and put it in your pocket. Pull it out at lunch time. Pray over it again. Read it at bed time. Share it with someone - Christian or not. You never know what will make a difference in someone's life. Share your struggle with it and how you are trusting God to change you and make you new. You will blow someone's mind because it will reveal in you a struggle that they face too - sinfulness.
When you spend time thinking about your SOAP, it is called meditation. Meditation is simply the process of converting truth into spiritual fuel. It takes head knowledge and turns it into heart knowledge. Heart knowledge is powerful, because from your heart flows your speech and actions. Change your thoughts and you will change your heart. Change your heart and you will change your life.
If you have read through this post and possibly even worked through SOAPing as a result of this post - I thank you for your time and consideration. This is how I spend most every day in my devotions. I SOAP. I believe in it. And God uses it to clean me up daily. Mark Batterson in his book The Circle Maker says that journaling and praying through Bible is not just a way to get through the Bible, but it is a way to get the Bible through you. Make a plan to begin SOAPing today and watch as God changes you daily through it.
SOAP RESOURCES:
Here's a Google search I did that gives a ton of SOAP resources, including daily reading plans. If you don't have a Bible, visit www.Bible.com and read any version you'd like for FREE. There's even an online SOAP reading plan found HERE called the Life Journal Plan by Wayne Cordeiro.
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