This was a funny clip from John Piper’s Sermon that you can read more here at: “Holding Fast to the Word in 2010” and it really does bring to mind, Do we let the world decide for ourselves that the bible-God’s Word-is boring compared to the world, both fictional or real?
How often when we have a choice to choose between reading the bible, or the latest popular magazine, watch a popular movie or t.v. we choose the world over really spending time with His Word but then say, “I don’t have time”.
We have time when we use the time we spend on the world to spend with Him.
Reading the Word, isn’t something we should seek to compress into a quick fix or a competition, but something we should seek to make a lifelong goal that never ends.
In his sermon, “Holding Fast the World of Life in 2010″, John Piper shared,
“Hear me carefully. I am making no promises that reading or memorizing the Bible will automatically make your life strong and healthy and fruitful. The Pharisees read and memorized the Scriptures more than any of us ever will. And most them, Jesus said, were cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12).
I am not giving a guaranteed technique for power. The Spirit blows where and when he wills. I have known seasons of terrible barrenness in reading the Bible. Not in neglecting the Bible, but in reading the Bible. I am not God, and the Bible is not God. God is God. And we do well not to think we can manipulate him by handling his words like beads on a string or fingers on a ouija board. ”
Why are we reading the bible? Is it because we are hoping to please someone or are we hoping to have a closer relationship with our Heavenly Father?
John Piper speaks pretty convicting words that even leads myself to go, “Why am I reading the Bible and how am I treating the Bible?”
We live in a world of self-promotion and instant gratification and the truth is that the bible isn’t for us or about us, it’s about Him. Convicting words, but when we get more excited about the latest movie than we are about reading His word and really digging into it…we should and must stop and ask ourselves why?? Why are we really reading His Word?
John Piper goes on to say,
“Paul prays that we would see what is in the word with the eyes of our hearts. This is the close of Prayer Week. And there’s the link between prayer and the word of God. If God does not act sovereignly to overcome our spiritual blindness and deafness and numbness, seeing we will not see, and hearing we will not hear, and reading we will not comprehend.
So I am giving you no guaranteed regimen or device or scheme or trick for spiritual power and health and fruitfulness. Bible reading is not magic. Bible memory is not mind control or divination. I don’t know if your reading the Bible and meditating and memorizing will give you power and health and fruitfulness.”
If you haven’t read His Word, are but feeling like you are faltering or want to read His word and don’t know where to start…JUST START.
Pick up a bible.
Any bible.
Use the internet and there are lots of reading plans out there and don’t get intimidated by just one plan; Find any plan that works for YOU and read.
He has so much to share with you and there is so much for you to gain from reading His Word.
If anything keep these points that John Piper shares, close to heart while you read:
- Hold fast to it for the sake of faith. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17).
- Hold fast to it for the sake of your joy. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).
- Hold fast to it for the sake of your freedom. “If you abide in my word . . . and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32).
- Hold fast to it for the sake of your holiness. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
- Hold fast to it for the sake of the Holy Spirit. “Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:5)?
- Hold fast to it for the sake of life. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
- Hold fast to it for the sake of strength and stability and fruitfulness. Your delight will be “in the law of the Lord, and on his law you will meditate day and night. You will be like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that you do you will prosper” (Psalms 1:2–3).
As you read God’s word, remember, it’s not a race to see who finishes or how you finish, because reading the bible, there is never such a thing as too much or “it’s enough”.
Reading the Bible, it’s never enough and it is exciting and it’s about understanding God’s promises in the OT and how it ties in to the fulfillment of His promise in the NT.
Reading the bible is both enriching and enjoying. So pick up your bible, any bible, and prepare for a spiritual adventure from here to eternity.
14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.
(Philippians 2:14-16, New King James Version)
*excerpts from John Piper,”Holding Fast to the Word of Life in 2010“-If you are reading, want to read,challenged to start or scared to start, I highly recommending reading and watching him.
© 2010, Sunflower Faith. All rights reserved.
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I agree.
.-= Denise´s last blog ..Pursuing Love-Love Is Kind =-.
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Carrie @ ComfortedbyGod.blogspot.com
You’ve touched on a personal passion of mine. Clinging to God while reading and studying the Bible is what has carried me through many tough days. I’m so glad you’ve encouraged me to press on!
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