The most common advice from church leaders is to read the bible and pray. It has been said enough times to tune people out when someone says “read your bible.” The essential advice has been taken for granted and seems to fall on deaf ears, but here’s why it’s necessary and what will happen and won’t happen once daily bible reading becomes a practice.
This will be the start of your relationship with GOD
We become Christians once we decide to follow GOD and accept that Christ is our LORD. The way we can follow GOD is by knowing who He is, and we do that by having a relationship with Him, through prayer and Bible reading.
Being Spoon-fed the Word of God
For 22 years of attending church, I thought I knew GOD, but I did not realize that I was being spoon-fed the word of GOD. Yes, I knew GOD from the thousands of sermons I heard, but I didn’t have intimacy with Him. GOD was not speaking to me first-hand. I was relying on a preacher to tell me who GOD was in my life. Whether the preacher had his quiet time with GOD, I didn’t know, but I was trusting the preacher to tell me his own discoveries and revelations of the Bible.
He and I had something in common. We both possessed the same Bible at home, but he read it and I didn’t. I had clapped during his sermons, but I hadn’t experienced my own “awe” after reading a passage. My understanding of GOD did not deepen because I was depending on a leader. A leader who was a stranger to me because I had no idea if the spiritual life he displayed at the pulpit was the same at home. I was being fed the Word of GOD by someone else. It wasn’t until I opened my Bible that I began to learn about the love of GOD. Reading my bible was the start of my relationship with GOD.
You will start your day right
Begin your day with God by prioritizing Him before any other tasks. Our relationship with God is our priority. By seeking Him first, we are letting Him know social media, our kids, husband, the dishes, work, school, cleaning, and cooking are not our priority — but He is. When we choose to seek God before anything else, we are preparing our spirit to take on the challenges, temptations, and troubles of today. We are feeding our spiritual souls and setting our minds to think and be more like Christ.
“Jesus answered, ‘It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Matthew 4:4
You learn that time does not belong to you
Through Bible-reading we can learn that GOD is in control of our time. The time we have on Earth is not ours, but it is His. If we do not give GOD time because we are too busy with our own to-do lists, then we are taking things into our own hands and creating our own paths, which means we may face struggles trying to schedule our own life. We may leave out reading the Bible because we feel rushed to accomplish other goals, but let’s remember that with our own strength we can’t accomplish anything. God is the one that promotes, progresses, and causes growth in someone’s life.
“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”
1 Corinthians 3:7
We should let GOD build our days. When we start our day with His Word, our time is in His hands. He will allow us to live abundantly with enough time to accomplish other daily to-do’s.
Psalm 127: 1-2 says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves.”
You will become disciplined
As we start reading the Bible daily, we gain discipline. There will be days we will not feel motivated to read the Word, but motivation is not the reason we do it. We will continue to read because we’ve formed a habit and a relationship with God, through discipline.
Reading our Bible will not become part of our to-do list; instead, it will be our need, just like our daily bread. We can use cooking as an example. We don’t always feel like cooking or going to the drive-through for food, but just because we do not feel like it does not mean we will not do it since we need food to survive.
You will mature as a Christian
Through reading the Bible, we will begin learning about God. We will learn how He treated the Israelites in Exodus with unimaginable love and His faithfulness through generations, and how his love is everlasting. We may learn that our Christian life is not as authentic as we taught, not because we want to mislead anyone, but because of our ignorance of the Word of God. God will give us the grace to read our Bible and make it a habit to mature as Christians.
You won’t be holy or perfect
Just because we start our day by reading our bible, our day will not be perfect. We will have days where our emotions get the best of us. Putting GOD first does not mean issues will not arise, but we will deal with challenges differently since we will be led by the Spirit of God and not our flesh. GOD will guide us through our everyday challenges. For example, In the following bible verse, we see two men going through the exact issues, the only difference was each man’s foundation. It maintained one-person firm, and the other fell.
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock.
But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.”
Matthew 7: 24-27
In other words, if we read our Bibles daily, the rain will still fall, the rivers will still rise, the winds will still blow and our house will still pound, and our life will still face obstacles, but due to our foundation in the LORD, we will not fall.
You will depend on GOD more and more each day
Choosing to open our Bible daily will help us depend on GOD more. It will transform us into His image, mold us, and correct us one day at a time. We will begin to discover that reading our Bible is the way to live our lives and grow as followers of Christ.
2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
Conclusion
Those are the things we will learn from choosing to read our bible. What we learn will help us mature and grow our relationship with the LORD. Other tasks that we put our attention on will eventually fade, but the Word of God remains forever and it serves as the perfect instruction to lead us to eternal life with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”