After we looked at why we read God’s Word, we are looking at how we are to look at it. This devotional reading begins to look at how we are to continually and thoroughly study His Word.
Nuggets
- We are to be a full-time student of God’s Word.
- We are to receive God’s Word in our hearts as He intends it so that it can transform us.
- We need to receive God’s Word acknowledging the authority He has – that we don’t.
- The big how we receive God’s Word is that we meditate on it.
We’ve spent the last two devotions looking at why we should read God’s Word. Basically, we should want to learn about salvation and grow closer to Him.
Some may ask how we do that — or how do we do a better job at that. Over the next two devotions, we are going to look at how.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Searching the Scriptures study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
All headings are the wording from the S. S. Times’ sermon Searching the Scriptures.
Resource
Thinking of It Continually
“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut. 6: 7 ESV)
We are to be a full-time student of God’s Word.
Teaching takes a lot of planning. First, you have to figure out what you are going to teach.
Well, maybe first you have to figure out who your students are going to be. You want to make sure what you teach is relevant and appropriate.
If you are lucky, you don’t get a one-time shot. Don’t get me wrong. Conferences are great with their hour-long breakout sessions.
But you get inundated with all this information that may or may not be connected. By the second day, your head is swimming, and your bottom is sore.
I know. We don’t want to teach the same things over and over. But how long do we retain something on a one-and-done learning experience?
When we think about searching the Scriptures, we aren’t the ones doing the teaching. We are the students.
We need that constant expectation that we will be learning something. Every time we open our Bibles, we should think that God is already there to reveal to us what He wants us to learn.
We need to be in God’s Word daily. Oh, we may be reading verses on different topics and experiences.
But the theme is all the same. It is all about God loving us enough to send His Son to save us.
But isn’t the last part of the verse interesting? We need to be willing to be taught as we go along in life. Regardless of our age. Regardless of our circumstances and responsibilities at the time.
We should always be open to learning from God’s Word. To do that, we have to have, as Lavington said, a reverence for His Word.
Resource
Yes, it is our duty to read God’s Word, but we have to have more of a motivation than that.
We have to want to read it. We have to see the value of reading it.
Receiving It as the Word of God, not of Man
“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (I Thess. 2: 13 ESV)
We are to receive God’s Word in our hearts as He intends it so that it can transform us.
How we receive God’s Word is not just about how we read it. It is also about how we secure it in our hearts.
I know. Secure seemed like a different word when I wrote it.
But I think it’s really accurate when we think about it. When we secure something, we tie it down, so it doesn’t get lost in transit. Or we lock the doors for the night, so nobody comes in and steals from us – or worse.
We have to secure God’s Word in our hearts the same way. His Word guides us throughout our lives. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119: 105 ESV).
God’s Word isn’t a Christmas gift of socks or an ugly sweater that we will never wear. It must be something that permeates our life. We have to not only read it but use it daily.
We especially use it when Satan is attacking us. “and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6: 17 ESV).
God’s Word is our only defensive weapon in the armor of God. That is because we can only withstand Satan’s attacks when we are buried in His Word, and His Word is buried in us.
We can only accept God’s Word by faith. Faith is a gift from God and a work of the Spirit that enhances the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives and distinguishes us from others.
Glossary
We accept all of it, even when we don’t understand all of it. We can’t pick and choose.
Spurgeon told us how the Thessalonians accepted God’s Word. We should do the same.
- Calmly
- Candidly
- Carefully
- Welcomingly
- Confidently
- Joyfully
Resource
Spurgeon told that that we cannot receive everything. I agree. If God told us everything He knows, it would be too much for us to handle.
Plus, some would start thinking that makes them a god. We’re not. Never going to be.
We have to receive all God’s Word and believe in what He is saying the way He says it. We cannot rewrite it to our own opinions.
After we reverently receive it, we have to obey it. We have to submit to His authority.
God is Sovereign God. He is Creator of us and all there is. He didn’t have to write to us directly, but He did.
We have to receive God’s Word as He intended — the path to our salvation. When we receive it in faith, we must respond.
Receiving It with Meekness
“Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (Jas. 1: 21 ESV)
We need to receive God’s Word acknowledging the authority He has – that we don’t.
We just talked about this verse in the last devotion. The real reason why we read God’s Word is so we can find salvation.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Glossary
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
That was the why. The how is with meekness. If we don’t accept God’s Word meekly, we — in essence — don’t receive God’s Word.
It is all about attitude. Attitude is the way we have the mind of Christ.
Submission is, too. We have to choose to put our opinions aside and accept God’s provision for us.
Trapp put it this way. He wrote, “It is self-evident that the better disposed the mind is, the more likely it must be to receive and retain the heavenly instructions. As a vessel which is empty, clean, and sound, is best fitted to receive and retain pure water, or any such liquor poured into it. Whereas, on the contrary, the foul exhalations of lust will be apt to exclude the Word.”
Resource
We have to be willing to accept what God is offering us — all of it — His way. That means we have to clear ourselves of preconceived notions and really see what He is saying.
Trapp told us the meekness releases us from any preconceived bias. We have to be totally open to what Gods is telling us.
That is where some get crosswise, isn’t it? They want to base what they are reading in God’s Word to what they know — or think they know.
They can’t do that. They have to set that aside.
Do they have the faith — or not — to believe what God has written in His Word?
When we say we do have faith and ABCD, we are milk babies. Oh, doesn’t that burn us? We spend much of our childhood wanting to be an adult only to be told — if we are adults at time of conversion — that we are milk babies.
That is where sanctification comes in. It helps us to grow to be steak adults.
Sanctification is the transformational process of the mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
Glossary
We have to read God’s Word with the eye of growing in His grace and knowledge. We’ve got to get it down to the heart level.
Meditating upon It in the Night Watches
“My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise” (Ps. 119: 148 ESV)
The big how we receive God’s Word is that we meditate on it.
I know. Some associate meditating only with Buddhism and Hinduism.
The psalmist said we should meditate on God’s Word. In other words, we should focus on it.
We need to consider what God is calling us to do – how we are to follow Him. Spending time considering how we are going to choose to follow His Will is important.
A good time to do that is before we go to sleep. Reading God’s Word right before we call it a day will help protect us through the dark hours of the night. That is when Satan loves to strike to trick us into believe the opposite of what God wants us to believe.
Instead, we can focus on God’s promises.
Glossary
How Do We Apply This?
- Read God’s Word so we can learn to love Jesus.
- Read God’s Word so we learn to how to pray.
- Continually meditate on His Word.
- Achowledge God’s authority to give us His Word.
Resources
Father God. We praise You for Your promises that You’ve given us in Your Word. We choose to read it daily to learn more about You. Help us to understand it so we may grow closer to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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