Three Reasons to Read the Bible Every Day in 2019
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Well, happy new year.
00:00:05.360 | As we enter 2019 on this podcast,
00:00:08.440 | our seventh year now of Pastor John,
00:00:10.680 | you're about to head off to the cross conference
00:00:12.880 | in Louisville, which begins a Wednesday night.
00:00:15.080 | Over 7,000 are registered, which is super encouraging,
00:00:19.600 | and I just pray that God would bless the conference
00:00:22.480 | and he would use it to raise up hundreds of missionaries
00:00:25.960 | that will give their lives to the nations.
00:00:29.000 | Which is what the conference is about.
00:00:30.720 | There, Pastor John, you're going to deliver
00:00:32.760 | a missionary biography and a plenary session.
00:00:35.000 | But before you head off to the airport,
00:00:36.800 | we're talking about Bible reading in 2019.
00:00:39.680 | And here's today's question.
00:00:41.280 | Hello, Pastor John, I am Kennedy from Uganda.
00:00:44.160 | I have been listening to your sermons
00:00:45.640 | and I thank God for using you to impact our lives
00:00:47.920 | through the word that you preach.
00:00:49.420 | My question, whenever I'm reading the Bible,
00:00:52.400 | I find it hard to understand what the author intended
00:00:54.580 | for me to understand when he wrote it.
00:00:56.800 | Currently, I'm doing my devotions in the book of Genesis,
00:00:59.280 | but I so often find myself totally blank
00:01:01.840 | after I've read a text.
00:01:03.760 | What's the first basic skill in Bible reading
00:01:06.520 | to find meaning for myself?
00:01:09.480 | - Now, I know that our friend from Uganda
00:01:13.080 | is asking about the first basic skill
00:01:17.440 | to use his language in Bible reading.
00:01:20.080 | But based on the description of what's happening
00:01:23.720 | when he reads, I want to come at his question
00:01:26.260 | a little differently.
00:01:27.360 | Instead of giving just one basic skill,
00:01:32.800 | since I don't think that's the key
00:01:36.520 | when in our devotions we find ourselves blank,
00:01:39.400 | which he says he does, he's not the only one, by the way.
00:01:43.520 | It's not just a problem for beginners,
00:01:47.240 | but for me as well at times.
00:01:50.280 | So let me point to three things that are essential
00:01:54.720 | to ongoing fruitful encounter with God
00:01:58.800 | and his intended truth through the Bible.
00:02:02.840 | And I can describe these three things
00:02:05.400 | that I hope will be helpful in three ways.
00:02:08.740 | I could call them motivation, skill, and illumination,
00:02:13.640 | or I could call them the want to,
00:02:17.120 | and the able to, and the see-through.
00:02:22.000 | Or I could call them the desire, and the act,
00:02:27.000 | and the reward of Bible reading.
00:02:29.920 | So let me suggest a brief word about each one
00:02:34.920 | in the hope that God will create them in us,
00:02:39.480 | even as I speak.
00:02:41.480 | First, a word about motivation.
00:02:44.120 | If we lose motivation, we will not read the Bible,
00:02:49.420 | and if we don't read the Bible,
00:02:51.180 | we miss everything God has for us through the Word.
00:02:55.200 | And I was just reading yesterday in John 17,
00:02:59.660 | which is Jesus' prayer for the disciples,
00:03:02.580 | and I saw a cluster of precious things
00:03:05.660 | that are owing directly to hearing the Word of Jesus,
00:03:10.620 | which motivated me tremendously to want to read the Bible.
00:03:16.900 | So in verse 13, Jesus said, "These things I speak
00:03:20.940 | "in the world that you might have my joy
00:03:24.080 | "fulfilled in yourselves."
00:03:25.980 | So there is a fullness of joy that we will miss
00:03:30.980 | if we don't continually listen to what Jesus speaks,
00:03:36.100 | that is, listen to the Bible.
00:03:38.520 | And I think that principle holds for the whole Bible,
00:03:40.940 | not just the words of Jesus in the Gospels.
00:03:43.360 | Second, Jesus prays in John 17,
00:03:46.180 | "Father, sanctify them in the truth.
00:03:48.380 | "Your Word is truth."
00:03:51.460 | So the second thing we're gonna miss
00:03:53.660 | if we don't feed on the truth of the Word is sanctification.
00:03:58.660 | God has designed that we be made more holy,
00:04:04.340 | more sanctified by the truth.
00:04:07.900 | And then he says, "God, your Word is truth."
00:04:11.940 | And third motivation was in verse 20, where he says,
00:04:15.360 | "I don't ask for these only,
00:04:17.240 | "but for those who will believe in me through their Word."
00:04:22.080 | So how do we come to believe?
00:04:23.500 | How do we keep on believing?
00:04:26.060 | We believe through the Word,
00:04:29.080 | through the Word of the apostles.
00:04:30.940 | And where's that found?
00:04:31.820 | It's found in the Bible.
00:04:33.900 | So three powerful motivations to read our Bibles,
00:04:38.900 | if you want faith, if you want holiness, if you want joy,
00:04:43.660 | they all, Jesus says,
00:04:45.660 | come through encountering God in his Word.
00:04:49.660 | That's how we get motivated.
00:04:51.500 | We want these things and therefore we want the Word.
00:04:55.700 | So that's the first of my three essentials,
00:04:59.780 | which I know our friend didn't even ask about,
00:05:01.780 | but I think it's just absolutely crucial
00:05:04.720 | that we see how to motivate ourselves
00:05:07.980 | because if we go blank when we're reading the Bible,
00:05:10.460 | we quickly lose motivation.
00:05:13.100 | Now, just a sentence about each of the other two.
00:05:16.860 | So the first is motivation.
00:05:18.260 | The second is skill, the ability to read.
00:05:21.220 | Here's my single suggestion,
00:05:23.500 | and there's lots more in my book,
00:05:26.120 | "Reading the Bible Supernaturally."
00:05:28.300 | Lots and lots of practical things
00:05:30.280 | about how to beef up your natural skill
00:05:33.700 | in getting meaning from the Bible.
00:05:35.820 | But here's the one thing I wanna say here.
00:05:38.700 | Something mysterious happens
00:05:40.900 | when we pick up a pen or a pencil, not a keyboard,
00:05:44.980 | but a pen or a pencil,
00:05:46.940 | and we either write out the text,
00:05:50.720 | or if it's too long,
00:05:52.500 | write down questions you have or observations you make
00:05:55.500 | about the things that you're reading in the text.
00:05:57.900 | And you may think, our friend in Uganda may think,
00:06:00.460 | well, good grief, that's just gonna record my ignorance.
00:06:04.540 | I'm asking for help to see.
00:06:06.900 | And I say, no, no, no, that's not true.
00:06:09.340 | No, it won't just record your ignorance.
00:06:11.940 | Writing down the text causes you to have thoughts
00:06:16.940 | you wouldn't have otherwise had.
00:06:19.900 | Asking questions which you write down causes your brain
00:06:23.900 | to have thoughts you wouldn't have otherwise had.
00:06:27.480 | So that's my one single suggestion for him
00:06:30.120 | to make progress in the skill category.
00:06:32.620 | And here's the last one.
00:06:33.860 | The third of these essentials is illumination.
00:06:37.660 | That's a gift of the Holy Spirit.
00:06:39.820 | He causes God himself, his character, his will,
00:06:44.140 | his ways to shine through the scriptures.
00:06:48.580 | And the key to having this illumination is prayer.
00:06:53.060 | And I say that because in Ephesians 1:18, Paul prays for it.
00:06:57.100 | He prays that the eyes of their heart would be illumined.
00:07:01.500 | So pray for illumined reading.
00:07:06.220 | So whether it's our friend in Uganda
00:07:09.020 | or anywhere else in the world, my prayer is,
00:07:13.180 | may God grant strong motivation, increasing skill,
00:07:18.180 | and bright, transforming illumination
00:07:23.540 | in all of our Bible reading in 2019.
00:07:28.140 | - Amen, thank you, Pastor John,
00:07:29.500 | for preparing us for the year ahead.
00:07:31.100 | And we need to let you go to the airport.
00:07:33.180 | We'll be praying for the cross conference
00:07:34.580 | and for your time there as well.
00:07:37.420 | You know, in the history of this podcast,
00:07:38.860 | we've now surpassed 1,300 total episodes.
00:07:41.500 | Thank you for your interest
00:07:42.500 | and for your questions over the past years.
00:07:44.780 | You can search all those episodes, read full transcripts,
00:07:46.980 | and send us your own questions, all at our online home,
00:07:49.700 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:07:53.220 | Friday, we return with another great Bible question.
00:07:56.620 | Here it is.
00:07:57.460 | If I have 60 minutes each day for reading,
00:08:00.540 | how much of that time should be Bible reading?
00:08:04.220 | Spoiler alert, Pastor John is gonna say, "Not 60 minutes."
00:08:08.660 | He'll explain why on Friday.
00:08:09.820 | I'm your host, Tony Reiki, and we'll see you then.
00:08:12.220 | (gentle music)
00:08:14.820 | (gentle music)
00:08:17.420 | [BLANK_AUDIO]