The Habit That Changes a Life
Suppose there were one thing you could do this year that would change your life and bring you more of God's blessing than anything else. You would want to know what it was. God has told us. Open His Word, read it, and live by it.
If you want to hear from God, He speaks through His Word. All scripture is given by inspiration of God (2 Timothy 3:16). You do not need a vision or a voice, and you do not need to wait for a feeling. God has already spoken, and what He said is complete (see The Sufficiency of Scripture). When you open your Bible, you are reading what your Father has said.
Jesus treated the Word as food. When He was hungry in the wilderness and Satan tempted Him with bread, He answered from Scripture.
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”MATTHEW 4:4 · KJV
Peter tells new believers to crave the Word the way a baby craves milk: As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby (1 Peter 2:2). Job could say, I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food (Job 23:12). The Bereans searched the scriptures daily (Acts 17:11). No one eats once a week and stays strong. Your soul needs daily food as well.
Reading the Bible does not earn God's favor, and missing a day does not lose it. If you have trusted Christ, you are already His child because of what Jesus did. Daily reading is a Father's table, set for children He already loves.
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For Deeper Study
- Living by the BookAmazon Howard G. Hendricks and William D. HendricksA warm, practical guide to reading and studying the Bible for yourself, from a longtime Dallas Theological Seminary professor and his son.
- Basic Bible InterpretationAmazon Roy B. ZuckA clear next step for reading Scripture accurately, from a dispensational teacher.
- Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian LifeAmazon Donald S. WhitneyPractical chapters on Bible intake and other habits of grace. Whitney is a Calvinistic Baptist, and we differ on election. We treat these disciplines as growth, never as merit.
- Profiting from the WordAmazon A. W. PinkA short older book that presses the reader to ask whether his Bible reading is changing him. Pink was a strong Calvinist, and we differ with him there.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Your New Life in Christ
The moment you trust Christ, God forgives you, declares you righteous, makes you His child, and gives you His Spirit, and from that settled place you begin a lifetime of growing to be like Jesus.
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