Reading the Bible, God’s word, every day is a wonderful discipline. A person needs to regularly read and study the word if they are going to grow in the knowledge of God.
But there’s something more important than the discipline; yes, even more important than bible knowledge.
We must know what God has to say to us, TODAY.
Notice what the Lord said through Moses:
“Keep and live out the entire commandment that I’m commanding you today so that you’ll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don’t live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God’s mouth. Your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.
“So it’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s land where you’ll never go hungry – always food on the table and a roof over your head. It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills. After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
“Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up – make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God, the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery; the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions; the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock; the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you. If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!” – well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors – as it is today.” (Deuteronomy 8:1-18 MSG)
God reminded the people of all the times he had taken care of their needs. He used the examples to explain that the most important thing they would ever do was learn how to live by what he was SAYING; or, “that which proceeds from the mouth of God.”
Jesus said the same thing, when facing the tempter.
“Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.” “(Matthew 4:4 MSG)
God is desiring to speak to you and I. And what he has to say is worth hearing; in fact, it is spirit and life (John 6:63). It is “life to those who find it, and health to all their flesh” (Proverbs 4:22).
There can be a difference between reading the bible as a duty, or reading it to fellowship with God and hear what he has to say. If you and I can hear what he has to say, then we will hear what we need to do so we can live the life he has for us. If we don’t hear, or act upon what he said, we will find ourselves stumbling and losing ground. Dying, spiritually, results from either not hearing his voice, or hearing it but failing to obey.
If you want to live, really live, then talk to the Lord daily, asking him to reveal his daily word to you.
His Steady Stream.
A new devotional, A Steady Stream – a word for each day of the year, is available both in paperback or ebook. You can find it at amazon.com or createspace.com
The book, while it has many scriptures, is not intended to REPLACE God’s word. Rather it is simply a tool you can use to help you draw close to God and his word.
Remember, you and I will live, not by reading so many chapters and verses each day, and not by memorizing all the books in the bible. We will live according to the Steady Stream of words which proceed from the mouth (and heart) of God.
Happy living!
