Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
-Acts 17:11
Don’t just listen to someone else, read the Bible for yourself… every day!
Do you say, I must study? You must first make up your mind to do all for Christ,–else study can be no acceptable duty. When Jesus says to you–”My son, give me thy heart,” he wants nothing else instead of your heart. He does not wish to be put off with some other duty, than the very one he calls for. When he says–”Follow me;” he demands an explicit answer, whether you will or no, and he cannot accept anything evasive.
-Charles G. Finney
It’s frightening to think we can know the Bible inside out and yet not give Christ our hearts. The Word becomes another duty, rather than the only source of life. God isn’t calling Bible scholars, he’s calling Christ followers!
Before opening our Bibles, we must answer with “Yes, I will follow”–that is, to follow Christ with our heart. When we open the Word with the intention of following what Christ is speaking to us throught it, then, and only then, can the Word truly have its full effect on our hearts.
Learning to follow,
Tom Fogarty
Where one man reads the Bible, a hundred read you and me.
-D.L. Moody
Its important to remember that we’re always being read by others, Christians and non-Christians alike. We should always be mindful of the fact that people in this world don’t look at how much we read the Bible, they look at our actions and our conversation (although, reading the Bible should produce fruit in those areas).
Sometimes, we’re not “read” in the way we’d like because of a situation or a moment in time that we weren’t “quite ourselves”; we become something other than a living epistle because of distraction or selfishness, then our lives just simply aren’t telling of Christ and the work He has accomplished in us.
We can’t let our situations get the best of us and assume that people will look at us based upon our story pages ago; our lives must constantly be changing as the pages turn, becoming more and more like Christ as our story progresses.
When people read your life, what do you think they read?
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
John 17:17 (ESV)
The word, that is, the Bible, sets us apart… if we are in the word, we will not only be filled with truth, we will be consecrated to God.
The more word we have in us, the more it will purify us.
The more we revere God, the more we’ll read the word.
Let’s be a people of the Book!