How many people have you met in your lifetime? Hundreds, maybe even thousands? Well, out of all those people, how many have had an influence on your life? How many of them have helped to shape you in either some large or small way, making you who you are today?
People Change People
Think of your friends, past and present, teachers, writers, mentors, your husband or wife, parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, old flames, new flames, employers, bosses, folks at work, neighbors, mail carriers, doctors, barbers, beauticians, repair technicians, salespeople—and the list could go on.
Circumstances have a lot to do with shaping our character. But the accumulated impact of other people touching our lives in either significant or small ways might be the greatest force in shaping our development as people.
Every day, the people who enter our lives have the potential to make a difference in how we choose to live. Our greatest joys have been other people. Our deepest hurts have come from people. Moments of great encouragement have come from people. People have been the ones to let us down. People have taught us the truth and they have led us astray. Life is about people.
God Has Some People for You to Meet
God’s Word tells us all about people. God has preserved the stories of many men and women who have gone before us. Through reading the Bible, we see ourselves for who we really are and what we can become. The biblical authors help us see these things.
The Bible is the story of God relating to people. That’s why God himself became one of us—we know him as Jesus. Ultimately God gave us the Bible so we might meet Jesus, the only perfect person, and be changed forever by his acquaintance.
Jesus is waiting to meet you today—just as you are. But, like your dearest relationships shape and mold you, Jesus also desires to shape and mold you. In fact, he desires to make you new. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The people we meet in Scripture, beginning with Jesus, open our eyes not only to what we are now but also to just what we can be. And though they have walked this earth in days gone by, God asks us to meet them in his Word today so that their lives may touch us and shape us into the image of Jesus, to be people like him.
Like a sculptor creating a great masterpiece, God can use the people in the pages of Scripture to chisel our character and shape us into his own image—into the image of Jesus.
Spend Time with the People of the Bible
People can influence our lives for both good and evil. In either case, their impact on us comes through spending time together and developing a relationship. But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to have a significant influence on anyone if they don’t know you or spend time with you. God wants you to meet the biblical authors, but to also get to know them by spending time in the Bible, becoming acquainted with their lives.
Though they walked this earth two thousand years ago, there are people in Scripture God wants us to meet, beginning with Jesus. He asks us to meet them in his Word today so that they may touch and transform our lives.
Once you open your Bible, you might be surprised at the people you find, but we can guarantee that as you get to know them, they’ll change your life. Want to meet a biblical author? Begin with checking out our page on the Apostle John!