top 3 list, but bottom line, read the bible. find God.

In my previous post I talked about the top 3 reasons Christians aren’t reading the Bible. This time, I’m giving my top 3 scriptural reasons why Christians need to read the Bible.

You have been created with purpose, and there are good works that have been planned for you to do.  You need a thorough equipping in order to live the life and do the work God has for you, and it will only be done through Scripture.

But how have many believers twisted this one? By assuming that it means that scripture is useful to us for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training OTHER PEOPLE. So when (if) they spend time in God’s word, it is for that purpose — to prove that others are wrong. I have seen the fallout from those who have used Scripture against other people while ignoring what it says about themselves. It turns people away from the Word of God, and even from the Church. It wounds the Body of Christ.

I want to speak particularly to mothers and fathers. Do not attempt to train your children with the Word of God unless you are allowing it to train you. Do not wield an authority that has not been tempered with humility. We are never more humbled than when we allow the Word of God to tell us we are wrong and then teach us how to be right. If you do not train your children up with humility, it will be done with pride. And pride hurts more than the prideful.

The Word of God, describing itself:  I am alive. I am active. I am sharp. I am penetrating. I divide. I judge.

We know ourselves enough to know there are things that need to change. Thoughts, attitudes, motives. But the trend I have been witnessing is the people of God devouring anything that will tell them they are okay the way they are. Those soothing blog posts that tell us that we need to love ourselves, accept ourselves and be our own champions sound like truth to ears begging for something sweet. Sermons and podcasts that convince us that our greatest mission is to go out, love others and share the Gospel. So we have an entire generation of people doing just that. Just that. Because we forgot to tell them that before Jesus commissioned His disciples, He taught them, and He revealed their own hearts to them. He allowed Peter to deny Him, because Peter needed to know that denial was in him. He revealed the motives of brothers who wanted the best seats. He called His closest followers out for their lack of faith on numerous occasions. We like to look at the stories in scripture and see that His disciples were ordinary people, just like us. That makes us feel better about ourselves. But we fail to see that they became extraordinary people because they had been with Jesus, the Word of God, night and day for three years straight. The disciples did not remain the same people they were before they began following Him. Neither should we.

Jesus is the Word of God. Then and now.

To those first followers, He was alive and active. Sharp. Dividing. Judging. Is He the same for His followers today? Yes. If we are in the Word of God, allowing it to do the work of piercing, dividing and revealing. If not, we are a people learning to love ourselves to death, sharing a Gospel we are not really experiencing.

How can we live a life of purity? How do we seek Him with all of our heart? How do we keep ourselves from sin? Every answer is the same.

The Word of God.

How are you living according to the Word of God, if you are not living in the Word of God? If you are living according to the Word of God, then you are living according to His will and His ways. If you are not living according to His will and His ways — then you are living according to someone else’s will and ways. I’ll give you one guess as to who that someone is.

Where did David hide God’s Word? In the place where sin begins.

“But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” {Matthew 15:18-19} 

He didn’t hide it in his mind. While knowing the Word of God begins with mental knowledge, it cannot remain there. It must make its way into our soul (mind, will and emotions), into our heart. My personal opinion? We can know the Word of God in our minds, but still not believe it or trust it. But when we meditate on it, choosing to let it go into our hearts and bring forth change, then we are in a place of not just knowing His Word, but trusting it to be true and right.

So let’s review my top 3 reasons that Christians need to read the Bible:

1.  We need to be thoroughly equipped to live the life God has called us to live. And, we need to be taught, rebuked, corrected and trained by the Word of God. We just do.
2. We need the piercing, dividing, revealing work of the Word. We have no idea the things that are in our own hearts. We need the Word of God to tell us that we have hidden motives, thoughts, and desires that are contrary to Him, and that it’s just not ok to stay that way.
3. We need the Word of God to keep us from sin. Bottom line. That will not happen through sermons, or through a brief or sporadic glance at scriptures. It comes when we have lived in the Word of God until it is living in us.

Jesus found me in a hospital cafeteria, covered in sin. I found Him in the scriptures, covered in blood and grace and mercy and kindness and truth and glory.

My life, my character, my motives, my thoughts, my belief system — all changed when I was found by Jesus and surrendered to His lordship. That was the timing of it. But the method of it was by immersing myself in the living Word of God, and staying there.

Read your Bible. Find God.