How Do I Become Passionate About Bible Reading?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | Happy New Year to everyone who is listening.

00:00:06.320 | As we leave 2020 and embark into the great unknown of 2021,

00:00:12.080 | Pastor John and I are praying for you all, as Paul prayed in 2 Thessalonians 3.5,

00:00:18.240 | that the Lord will direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness

00:00:22.960 | of Jesus Christ. To that end, that your hearts would be

00:00:26.720 | riveted on the love of God, we kick off year number nine in this podcast,

00:00:31.600 | talking about daily Bible reading. With a new year means a reset on our

00:00:36.880 | Bible reading plans, and Pastor John, you used the Discipleship Journal Bible

00:00:40.320 | reading plan, something we talked about in episode 1140,

00:00:43.360 | an episode titled "A New Year, A New Bible Reading Plan." You can check that out if

00:00:47.040 | you want more, episode 1140. But today I want to talk

00:00:50.720 | about the sustained discipline and spiritual energy such a plan requires

00:00:54.800 | over the duration of an entire year. It is daunting for those who have never

00:00:58.960 | done it. It's daunting for those of us who have.

00:01:01.440 | But here's the question. Hello, Pastor John. My name is Angel.

00:01:04.320 | I'm 16. I strive to tell people around me about Jesus and to proclaim the gospel

00:01:08.800 | of salvation. But I find myself missing one major

00:01:12.080 | thing in my life that can be a huge obstacle,

00:01:14.560 | and that is my lack of desire for daily Bible reading.

00:01:18.640 | More often than not, I find myself forcefully reading the Word rather than

00:01:22.400 | having an actual passion for doing so. I desire to have that

00:01:27.920 | passion. I wonder sometimes if I lack it because I'm not a Christian

00:01:31.760 | at all. Would a regenerate heart neglect passionate Bible reading?

00:01:37.040 | I'm praying for this satisfaction. But what do I do now, especially with the new

00:01:41.760 | year and a new Bible reading plan ahead of me?

00:01:45.840 | Let me start this way. John Piper does not read through

00:01:51.760 | the Bible every year because there is a biblical law requiring me to do it.

00:01:59.360 | Rather, because there's something like a, I don't know what to call it, a natural

00:02:04.800 | law or spiritual law in my soul that sets off alarm bells

00:02:10.640 | if I don't.

00:02:13.360 | What I mean is this. My mental, psychological,

00:02:19.520 | spiritual condition has taught me over the years that without daily

00:02:26.480 | communion, daily fellowship with the living

00:02:30.320 | Christ, my God, my Savior, my treasure, my friend, in

00:02:36.720 | and through His Word, the totality of Scripture,

00:02:41.280 | without that, my sight of Him becomes blurred. I mean quickly, folks.

00:02:48.480 | We're not talking like, "Oh, he missed it for a month and he starts getting blurred."

00:02:52.160 | It doesn't work that way. Like you miss the Word

00:02:56.240 | for some hours of neglect or some days of neglect.

00:02:59.840 | My sight of Him becomes blurred. My savoring of Him becomes dull,

00:03:06.400 | and therefore my showing Him, which is what I exist for,

00:03:12.480 | through my life is diminished or forced. In other words, I believe that

00:03:18.160 | God has established that ongoing reception of the Word of God day by day

00:03:25.440 | is the ordinary means by which we fellowship

00:03:29.920 | with Him through the Spirit in Christ. This is His design, not mine.

00:03:37.360 | And when I speak of a law in my own soul, all I mean is that I have discovered

00:03:44.960 | that in my case, that daily fellowship with God by the

00:03:50.080 | Spirit, through His Word, to sustain my sight of

00:03:53.680 | Him and my savoring of Him and my showing of Him,

00:03:58.880 | that happens best through reading the whole Bible year by year, about

00:04:05.840 | four or five chapters a day. Some people are disinclined to do this

00:04:12.000 | because they fall behind and give up, which is why I love the

00:04:16.400 | Discipleship Journal reading plan, because you only read 25 days out of

00:04:20.240 | each month, which gives you five or six days at the

00:04:22.640 | end of every month to catch up, which is genius.

00:04:25.600 | But what I want to do in the next just a few minutes,

00:04:30.160 | at the beginning of the year here, is not persuade people

00:04:34.160 | of a particular plan, but to give the profound biblical truth and

00:04:40.800 | reality that ongoing feeding

00:04:45.120 | upon the Word of God day by day is built into God's way of saving you.

00:04:51.920 | In other words, we're not putting icing on the cake of Christianity when we talk

00:04:57.200 | about Bible reading. We're talking about the cake of God's

00:05:02.560 | spiritual plan to preserve you and bring you safely to heaven

00:05:08.800 | with all the necessary holiness that the Spirit

00:05:12.720 | creates only by the Word of God. So here are three passages of

00:05:19.920 | Scripture that are, to my mind, simply explosive

00:05:25.440 | with serious, wonderful implications about feeding day by day on God's Word,

00:05:32.160 | and I hope that these three passages answer

00:05:35.360 | angels' concern specifically about the relationship between

00:05:39.920 | regeneration and Bible reading. So the first is 1 Peter 1,

00:05:44.640 | 23 to chapter 2, verse 3. Here's what it says.

00:05:48.720 | "You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of

00:05:53.200 | imperishable through," here it comes, "through the living and abiding

00:05:58.880 | Word of God. For all flesh is like grass, all its glory like the flower of grass.

00:06:04.400 | The grass withers, the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord remains forever.

00:06:08.080 | And this Word is the good news that was preached to you.

00:06:11.120 | So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander and,"

00:06:15.760 | here it comes, "like newborn infants," since you were just born again,

00:06:20.240 | "like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you might,"

00:06:27.520 | here it is, "grow up into salvation." Amazing!

00:06:32.800 | Indeed, if you have tasted that the Lord is good.

00:06:36.800 | So here's four really plain observations that anybody could get

00:06:41.040 | from this text. Number one, the miracle of new birth,

00:06:44.640 | the coming into being of a Christian as a child of God,

00:06:48.880 | happens through the Word of God. Number two,

00:06:52.080 | our experience of that miracle is described as

00:06:55.200 | tasting that the Lord is good. Before we were born again,

00:06:58.880 | the Lord did not taste good. He tasted boring. The Word was boring.

00:07:02.880 | His cross was foolishness. Heaven was unreal.

00:07:06.080 | Nothing about this faith tasted satisfying or real.

00:07:09.840 | Now, having been born again, we have tasted, tasted.

00:07:14.800 | Something's come alive. There are taste buds now on the

00:07:17.840 | tongue of our soul, and He and His Word are very delectable.

00:07:23.040 | Number three, nevertheless, even though they are

00:07:26.480 | delectable, nevertheless, we must be told to desire the spiritual food.

00:07:32.720 | In other words, eating is not automatic. Who would tell us to do it if it's

00:07:37.600 | automatic? Our desires rise and they fall.

00:07:40.880 | They're passionate one day, and they're lukewarm the next day.

00:07:44.400 | Peter didn't give us this command, "Desire it, desire it,

00:07:48.080 | desire it," because we didn't need to hear that command.

00:07:51.760 | We need to be told it is essential and crucial that you desire this.

00:07:55.920 | Do what you have to do to stoke this desire for spiritual food in the Word of

00:08:00.880 | God by which you were born again. And number four,

00:08:05.280 | here's the real serious point, desire it so that you may grow up into salvation.

00:08:13.280 | That means that the evidence of your new birth will be shown

00:08:19.760 | by your ongoing feeding on the Word of God,

00:08:24.560 | which works in you all the kinds of things that keep you on the narrow road

00:08:29.840 | that leads to life and final salvation. It's not a small thing. So what people

00:08:34.640 | should ask themselves is this, if they are not pursuing

00:08:40.320 | a daily strategy of feeding on the Word of God, what

00:08:46.720 | is your alternative strategy for growing up into salvation?

00:08:54.080 | Those are Peter's words. They're not mine. God's word

00:08:58.000 | is designed by God to help us grow up into salvation. If you don't use the

00:09:04.400 | Word that way, day in and day out, what's your

00:09:07.280 | alternative strategy for making it home? Here's the second text, James 1, 18 and 21.

00:09:13.440 | "Of his own will, God brought us forth by the word of truth."

00:09:18.240 | It's just like being born again. "That we should be a kind of first fruits

00:09:22.160 | of his creatures, put away all filthiness and rampant

00:09:25.600 | wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted

00:09:29.680 | word." Receive with meekness the implanted word,

00:09:34.000 | which is able to save your souls. Isn't that amazing?

00:09:38.320 | So Peter and James, without quoting each other, we know that because the language

00:09:43.120 | is so different, are nevertheless talking exactly about the

00:09:46.720 | same thing. One, God brought us forth by the word.

00:09:49.920 | Peter said we were born again by the word. And second,

00:09:53.360 | Peter says, "Long for the word." And James says,

00:09:56.400 | "Receive with meekness the implanted word." It's already in you.

00:10:00.560 | Now receive it. You've been born again by it. Now go on

00:10:03.840 | daily, meekly, embracing it, receiving it, meditating on it, praying

00:10:08.560 | over it, eating it, savoring it in a meek disposition.

00:10:12.320 | And third, Peter says, "In order that you may grow up into salvation." And James says,

00:10:17.680 | "Which is able to save your souls." That's simply amazing, folks.

00:10:21.440 | That is really serious when these two writers say exactly the same thing in

00:10:25.840 | such different language, because the nature of it, the

00:10:28.400 | essence of it, is so baked in to what it means to be a Christian. I

00:10:32.560 | mean, this is really serious. Both Peter and James say that the

00:10:36.720 | Christian life begins with the new birth, which is brought about by the word of

00:10:40.240 | God. Both of them stress that in order to make it home to final

00:10:44.320 | salvation, we need to be receiving the word meekly.

00:10:48.240 | We need to be drinking in the milk daily, because by it we grow up into

00:10:54.880 | salvation. It keeps us in a vital, happy fellowship with Jesus and brings

00:11:02.080 | us safely home. And let me just mention one more

00:11:04.800 | quickly from John 6, 63, where Jesus says, "It is the Spirit who gives life. The

00:11:10.400 | flesh is of no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are

00:11:14.880 | Spirit and life." There it is. The words, the words, the

00:11:19.440 | words that I have spoken to you are Spirit

00:11:23.520 | and life. To which Peter responds, "Lord, to whom then shall we go? You have

00:11:30.080 | the words of eternal life." The words of Jesus are life.

00:11:35.520 | So many people treat the Christian life as though it were a natural or

00:11:39.520 | automatic thing, that they're going to have life tomorrow,

00:11:42.720 | that they have today. It isn't automatic. It is sure for God's elect. They will

00:11:49.120 | have life tomorrow. He will see to it that they make it to

00:11:52.880 | heaven. But the elect, real Christians, realize

00:11:57.920 | that God's way of getting them home is preserving them and keeping them in

00:12:04.320 | fellowship with Christ by saying, "My words are your life,"

00:12:10.720 | and feeding on them every day. So here at the beginning of the year,

00:12:16.000 | "Oh, that I could so pray that the Spirit would so

00:12:22.560 | work that the hearts of his people," many of them listening to this, "that the

00:12:28.240 | hearts of his people would hear what I am saying, not as a

00:12:33.680 | burden but as life. May I simply testify."

00:12:39.200 | Here at the beginning of the year, I get to give my testimony.

00:12:43.040 | I love to get up early in the morning, grab my cup of hot tea in the wintertime,

00:12:50.160 | sit in my chair for an hour, and enjoy fellowship with

00:12:56.640 | Jesus, the living King of the universe, in four different places of the Bible. It

00:13:03.280 | is my life. And may I say it again, it is my life.

00:13:09.600 | Oh, may God cause you to experience his Word

00:13:13.600 | as life. Amen. So good. There is nothing automatic in the daily

00:13:19.360 | disciplines. Thank you, Pastor John, for that reminder.

00:13:22.320 | And just to reiterate, Pastor John himself uses the Discipleship Journal

00:13:26.160 | Bible Reading Plan, and you can find it for free online. Just search for it, the

00:13:30.080 | Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan. Thank you so much for listening. You can

00:13:34.800 | ask a question of your own. You can search all

00:13:37.280 | 1,600 of our past episodes, or you can subscribe to the podcast. You can do all

00:13:41.200 | that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:13:46.160 | Well, in the midst of this year-long pandemic, much talk has been given to

00:13:49.680 | the hope of a vaccine to help finally end

00:13:52.960 | the coronavirus outbreak. But such an outlook raises one of the

00:13:57.360 | hottest questions in the inbox. Can I take a vaccine made from the tissue

00:14:04.160 | of an aborted child? This is a big--for pro-life folks like

00:14:09.200 | us, this is a big question. It's up next time on Monday when we

00:14:13.280 | return. I'm your host Tony Renke. We'll see you then.

00:14:18.880 | you

00:14:20.960 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Become Passionate About Bible Reading?

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