The purpose of this blog is to help people find and follow God. To that end, I can’t think of a better place to direct people to go than the Bible. It is the primary place God speaks to us. But HOW does God speak in and through the Bible?
Here are four ways God uses the Bible to speak:
1. God speaks when we read the Bible consistently
Craig Groeschel said something recently that really hit me hard, “Successful people do consistently what others do occasionally.” When it comes to maturing in our faith in Christ, this is so true. You will not grow in your walk with God or hear from him without reading the Bible consistently. Period.
Personally, I try to carve out 30 minutes a day for this. 15 minutes in the Scriptures and 15 minutes in prayer. Some days I hit that goal, but most often it’s less! Nonetheless, that’s my goal. I try to read through the entire Bible every other year. So for this year, I am going through the One Year Bible on YouVersion along with a friend. It’s been great.
I love what Charles Spurgeon once said, “A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who is not.” In my experience, that is true.
2. God speaks when we meditate on the Bible
After the death of Moses, God speaks to Joshua and this is what he says, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:8). Out of all the advice, wisdom, and counsel Moses could have given his successor Joshua, he tells him to meditate on the Word of God, day and night.
It’s so easy to quickly read the Bible to check off our Bible in a Year Plan, but slowing down to internalize it, is another thing all together. To meditate on the Scriptures means staying with a passage or verse long enough for the Holy Spirit to help you understand and apply it. Meditation invites God to open his Word to your heart, mind and soul. Like a cow chewing on its cud, we chew on a verse or passage of scripture until we sense God speaking to us in it. And as we meditate on the Scriptures, a supernatural process occurs. God peels back our pride, our ego and our walls until we see what He sees
3. God speaks when we study the Bible
The Apostle Paul encouraged young Timothy to, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15).
Do you correctly handle the word of truth? Can you answer your neighbors hard questions about God? Can you sit with someone from another faith and have a good dialogue about the differences in our beliefs?
Studying the Bible is an art and a science. There is the science of Biblical interpretation, what’s called hermeneutics. There are principles of how to interpret the Bible, i.e. let scripture interpret scripture or context is king. But it’s also an art, the more you do it, the better you get at it. And the great thing about the Bible, is the more you study it, the more you realize how much you don’t know! It takes a lifetime to study the Bible and you’ll never master it!
4. God speaks when we obey and apply the Bible
Apostle James writes, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22).
The Bible is not a collection of helpful insights and tweets to encourage you to live your best life now. The Bible changes the way you think, the way you feel, the way you live, and even the way you love! All throughout the Bible and history, whenever God spoke to someone, their life was never the same again.
Many Christians I talk to do not need more biblical knowledge. Like me, we simply need to obey what we already know! Ouch! But, as we obey and apply God’s Word, we are lead in the path of abundant life.
God speaks to us through the reading, study, meditation, and application of His Word.
Are you listening?
Photo by Samantha Sophia on Unsplash
Pastor Rob Hall 