We're on the home stretch of our devotions revolving around our message series THE ME I WANT TO BE. What is God doing in your life? How is God growing you? What dream has He planted in your heart and soul? If God leads you, share some of this on Sunday morning in our ONE worship service @ 10:00am.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Jesus says, “You want a foundation for life? You want something you can stand on when the tough times come? You want something you can hold on to when your world falls apart or when the crowd is encouraging you to go a different way than the way you should? My encouragement to you – build your life on the words of Jesus – the ROCK - the Bible!
In the next few days, I want to walk through with you a simple outline that has helped me understand the importance of God’s word in my life.
If you want to get a grip on God’s word and build a solid foundation in your life…
#1. YOU’VE GOT TO HEAR GOD’S WORD.
There’s lots of ways to hear God’s word. You can hear it in messages in church. You can hear it on the radio or on CD's in the car. Listen to what happens when you hear God’s word - the Bible says in Romans 10:17 “So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” Every time you hear God’s word it raises your faith, it enables and empowers your faith. That’s incredibly good news.
But I’ve got some bad news for you too. The problem is, we tend to forget about 95% of what we hear after about 72 hours. That depresses me. To think that after all this work, 20+ hours of study, and after three days you’re going to forget 95% of it! How do you do more than just hear it because hearing it isn’t enough? You’ve experienced this. You hear a message and you think, “I'm going to do something about that.” But before you even get out of the parking lot, the truth slips away.
How do you get a firmer grip on this so it lasts in your life?
#2. YOU’VE GOT TO READ GOD’S WORD.
I need to start to read it for myself, let it make an impact in my life. This book, the Bible, it’s the best seller in human history. It’s filled with stories of larger than life people. People who fought against giants and won, who were swallowed by whales and rose again from the dead. It’s a cornerstone of our entire civilization. This book, the Bible, inspired the art of Michelangelo, the plays of William Shakespeare, the books of John Steinbeck. It still inspires the films of Hollywood today. Across this world there have been incredible numbers of freedom movements inspired by this book and changed the geographical and cultural center of our world.
Yet with all that, the incredible thing is how little we really read this book. Statistics across the U.S., not just people who come to church but everybody in the United States, say that 91% own a Bible. The average home has three Bible. 80% of Ameicans, when they’re surveyed, say that they believe the Bible is the most important book ever written, 58% of Americans say they think everything in the Bible is true. Yet only 7% say they read it regularly. WHY?
Why don’t we read it as much? Why do we struggle to read it? Maybe we don’t understand why God wants us to read it. Revelation 1:3 says “Happy is the one who reads the words of God’s message.” God wants you to read his book because He wants to make you happy. He wants to bring joy to your life, the joy of knowing which direction to go next, the joy of finding a solution where it didn’t seem like there was one possible, the joy of finding hope where there is nowhere else to find hope. That's why He wants you to read this book.
Deuteronomy 17:19 says, "The scripture shall be his constant companion. He must read from it every day." God wants all of us to read from His book on a daily basis. As you start to read the Bible, two suggestions:
Read the Bible systematically and read it from a translation you can understand. In other words, don’t just open it up to wherever each day. Have a plan. Read it from cover to cover. Did you know that if you read about fifteen minutes a day you’ll be able to read through the Bible in about a year. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” I have read you the first of the 31,101 verses of the Bible. Now you’re already 1/31,100th of the way through. You’re almost done. Then find a translation that you understand. King Jimmy (the King James Translation) and I don’t get along so well. For others of you, I know you love that translation – the point is read one that you get!
I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course. ENDURE!
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