Why Read the Bible?

Do you read your Bible daily, every few days or just once in a while? What are your reasons for being in the Word? I know mine have changed drastically and so much for the better in the last 12 years....let me explain.

I can't remember a time that I did not understand that it was important to read my Bible - that was just a given even as a child. But, it was much harder to put that into a disciplined routine and many times through my teen years I would experience God speaking so clearly through His Word and then put my Bible away and not read again for days. WHY? Because as much as I had a desire to please the Lord and had experienced the power of His Word, I still looked at being in the Word as "something I had to do". Although I became more disciplined as I moved into my twenties I still can't say that I loved being in the Word like I do now and I want to tell you more about why that is.

It was during a challenging time while my husband was pastoring that I made the commitment to God that no matter what was going on, I was going to be in His Word on a regular basis. I remember the time so clearly and that part of the change for me came almost instantly - I chose that I was going to be in the Word whether I "felt" like it or not. The interesting thing was that my love for the Word did not come instantly...don't get me wrong, I valued the Word and enjoyed the Word, I liked to read it, but I wasn't hungry for it yet. That came over time of many months of faithfully reading and meeting God in the mornings and asking Him to show me what He had for me that day. As my relationship with Him grew, my hunger for the Word grew, and the more I was in the Word, the more I realized how much I needed it. I have learned since, that whatever part of ourselves that we "feed", that is where our passions will grow.

It is almost twelve years later and I have journals and journals of Scripture that I have written out from daily times in the Word - I can look back and see how over and over God spoke specifically into a situation. I love the Word because God has been faithful to speak to me through it.

I have also found that I love the Word because I have grown in my love for God. John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the WORD WAS GOD." As I have been in the Word I have been growing in that most important relationship.

Over and over the Bible describes the importance of the Word to us with powerful descriptions: the Word is...flawless, a lamp to my feet, like fire, truth, life, living...it goes on and on. To not be in the Word is to rob ourselves of the greatest freedom we have to enjoy. I believe one of the strategies of the enemy is to make us feel "guilty" for not reading the Word because then our response will be to read "because we should". The Spirit convicts, but the enemy condemns - the Spirit draws us into the Word because God wants to meet with us, He has things to show us and to encourage us with; but the enemy wants it to be one more thing on our over extended lists of things to do which is what will drive us away from the Word.
I believe with all my heart that we need to be in the Word every day - I remember reading that if all we did was think about how food tasted even though we can imagine it perfectly, we would still not being fed. Similar to the old man who said he had been married for 60 years and couldn't tell you one meal he remembered completely but he knew that if he hadn't eaten them all those years, he would be dead. Don't pick up the Word because you feel like you have to, but pick it up because you want to meet with your God! Ask Him to make it alive for you and He will!