As a kid, I looked forward to my birthday more than any other day. Part of it was because I would get to do unique things like choose where my family would eat dinner that night or use a unique red porcelain "birthday" plate that my mom only used on birthdays. But the bigger part of it was the Legos. I loved Legos, and all of my family and friends knew it. Because everyone knew how much I loved them, I could always count on getting some Lego set every year on my birthday. I remember slightly shaking every gift box I was given at my birthday party to hear which box contained those magic little blocks. I was obsessed! However, I began to age out of Legos as I got older. It's not that I stopped loving them! Trust me, I still make my wife, Amy, walk down the Lego aisle with me whenever we go to Target! But there came a time when my family and friends wisely started to buy me more practical gifts instead of Legos. One of the gifts I get the most often nowadays is gift cards to restaurants. Now, here's the thing about gift cards. They are extremely practical and helpful, but only if you remember to use them! I can't tell you the number of times Amy and I have gone out to dinner, paid for the meal, and then later that week found a gift card for the exact place we ate at stuffed in the back of a drawer or a forgotten fold of a wallet. How frustrating! What makes it even worse is that there have been times when we know we have a gift card to a specific restaurant but are too hungry or lazy to search for it before we go.
How often do we treat the Bible like that forgotten gift card? We are given the incredible gift of God's divinely inspired, specifically chosen word, but then we allow a layer of dust to slowly collect on its cover. Through its pages, we have a direct path to a relationship with the one who created all things, yet we struggle to pursue that relationship. We are given incredible, practical wisdom through its pages, but when we have questions about life, we search for an answer on Google. Through its pages, we are given a biblical worldview framework that can help us understand what we should do, believe, and support. Yet, all too often, we just allow the world around us to tell us what is best for us. Like a gift card, to experience the benefits of the Bible, we have to use it! Today is the day we start that process. Today, we will discuss 5 reasons why you should read the Bible.
Reason #1: The Bible is God-breathed
Imagine your best friend or spouse putting months, even years, of effort into crafting a book explaining everything about them. It talks about every significant date you need to remember, every one of their favorite things, the places they do and don't like to eat at, the intricate parts of their character, their biggest fears in life, their biggest goals in life, their highest highs and lowest lows. Imagine them handing you that book so that you would never have to question anything about them ever again. Now imagine saying, "Wow! Thank you, this is incredible!" and then only opening it up once or twice a month to make sure you aren't going to miss an important date or something like that. They would be distraught, wouldn't they? They would be devastated because they didn't make that book for selfish reasons. They weren't trying to craft the next great autobiography; they were trying to show you how much they loved you by making your relationship more profound and more uncomplicated. This is what God has done for us! And yet, we take it for granted each and every day.
Whereas in that illustration, your spouse or best friend would spend months or years creating a book about themselves, God spent over a thousand years meticulously crafting a book about His greatness and goodness. Then, He even gave mankind the blessing of being able to write the book! In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul uses the word theopneustos, meaning "God-breathed," to describe how the Bible was written. This means that God intentionally spent time teaching mankind about Himself and instructing them about what to write and how to describe Him. That means that when we read the Bible, we aren't just reading some lofty words created by man. It means that we are literally encountering examples of God's very words. What an incredible privilege! What a tremendous gift!
Reason #2: Reading the Bible allows us to develop a relationship with God
You can't build a relationship with someone that you don't spend time with, right? For example, think about how much time a week you spend with God. That includes studying Scripture, praying, and worshipping. Ok, now imagine spending that same exact amount talking to your spouse or your best friend. It wouldn't go very well, would it? How convicting is that? If we wouldn't restrict our spouses or our best friends to that limited time to build a relationship, why do we so easily do it with God? God isn't asking you to spend every second of every day with Him, but He does want a deep relationship with you, and that sort of relationship takes time and effort.
This is where the incredible nature of Scripture starts to reveal itself. In a normal relationship, you are constantly waiting for the other person to open up and share details about themselves with you. But God made this extremely easy for us. God took the time to inspire an incredible book full of all the important details of His character, His words, and His deeds so that we could have immediate and simple access to learn all about Him. God has made a relationship with Him so incredibly easy, and He did it because He loves you!
Reason #3: Reading the Bible allows you to discern God's will
Throughout life, you make an incalculable amount of decisions. While not every decision is life-altering, when those types of decisions have arisen in your life, how do you know which choice God is calling you to take? As you start to build a relationship with God, you will slowly begin learning the sound of His voice. The Bible is His way of providing us with example after example of what His voice sounds like, how He speaks, and how He moves. Every passage of the Bible was specifically chosen by God and given to human authors to write so that there would be a permanent record of God's words and deeds. And now that permanent record is available in nearly every bookstore worldwide, on hundreds of websites, and on dozens of apps on our phones.
So what does that mean? It means that we have incredibly easy access to a book full of examples of God's voice. As you begin to spend time studying His word, you will begin to learn the distinct characteristics of His voice. You will begin to learn that God will never call you to sin or try to tempt you because Scripture tells us He won't in James 1:13-14. You will begin to learn that God never lies because Scripture tells us he won't in Titus 1:2. You will begin to learn that God will never call direct us toward danger, but instead, He desires to lead us to safety and green pastures because Scripture says so in Psalm 23. Once you begin to build this catalog of what God's voice sounds like and what He does and doesn't call His children to do, you will begin to be able to discern what God is calling you toward when big decisions arise.
Reason #4: Reading the Bible shows us a better way to live
God didn't just intend Scripture to be a book about Himself; He also intended it to provide us with practical wisdom so we could live a fulfilling life. This is why God ordained that all the accounts of Jesus' teachings would be included in Scripture. And Jesus puts it very plainly as well! In John 10:10, He says, "I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly." (John 10:10, ESV) God intends for us to live a fulfilling life and uses Jesus' teachings to lay out the exact path for how we can achieve such a goal!
For example, in John 13:34, Jesus calls us to love one another just as He has loved us. He knew that true joy could only be found through living in an overflow of the love He had already poured out on us. As I mentioned earlier, I love receiving gifts. But there is a different kind of joy, a more fulfilling joy that comes when you give a gift to someone else. This is just a small taste of what Jesus is calling us to, but every time I feel it, I can't wait to experience it again! Along this same idea, Jesus also calls us to serve others in Mark 10:43-45. This stems from that first idea of loving one another and again brings a joy that is so different from anything else you can experience!
Scripture even gives us wisdom on how to live a fulfilling life in our finances. In 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, God inspired Paul to write, "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God can bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." (2 Corinthians 9:6-8, NIV) God understands that finances are stressful and gives us a written promise that if we trust Him with the first fruits of our finances, He will always provide for our every need. I love that Paul uses the word "abound" in that passage because that means God isn't stingy! Like a good father, He loves giving His children good gifts. God didn't have to ensure that these Scripture portions were included. But He did because He loves us. He wants to have a relationship with us, and He wants us to live a fulfilling life through living for Him!
Reason #5: Reading the Bible helps us develop a biblical worldview
We live in an incredibly divided world. Every day, you will encounter thousands of opinions about what you should or shouldn't do, believe, or support. Without a solid biblical worldview, you will risk being pushed around by differing schools of thought and opinions your whole life. Reading the Bible allows you to understand what matters to God so that you can focus your life on supporting those things, thereby creating your biblical worldview. Reading the Bible helps you to understand your non-negotiables, the things that Scripture calls you to support, and the things it says to avoid. It helps you to understand what things you should stand up for, vote for, and support financially. If you're a people pleaser like me, developing a worldview can sound like a frightening task. This is because as soon as you choose to support one thing instead of something else, you introduce the possibility that your opinions will conflict with the opinions of those around you, including coworkers, friends, and family. Let me encourage you, as you spend more and more time reading Scripture and developing your biblical worldview, you will start to see these moments of conflicting opinions as opportunities to share your faith rather than obstacles to your faith.
God created the Bible because He loves us. He wants to have a relationship with us, He wants us to know His will, He wants us to live a fulfilling life, and He wants us to be able to develop a biblical worldview. So, now that you understand more about why you should set aside time to read the Bible, I challenge you to start making it a habit today! You'll be shocked by how spending even just 5 minutes a day seeking God through the Bible can change your life. Like I said earlier about comparing a gift card to the Bible, you can only benefit if you use it!