Today, we will look at the first of the “resolutions” we as believers would do well to implement this year, and that is: Reading. And not just reading anything, but specifically reading the Bible. The Bible is the holy and inerrant word of God (it is without error). And since God is our almighty, all-knowing, and tenderly loving Father, knowing what He has to say to us should be something at the top of every believer’s priority list.
Just think, if you were to receive a letter, or even in our new technological age, an email or a text message, from someone you love, I highly doubt you would simply glance at it, mutter some words of acknowledgement, and then “file it away” somewhere. Yet, how often do we take that approach to the love letter our heavenly Father has written for us? The letter (albeit a large 66-book letter) tells us about who He is, who we are, and what He has done, is doing, and will do for us.
Dear believer, the Bible is not just a dusty, old book that you take off your shelf now and then to see what it has to say about something relevant in your life. No, Jesus said that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). The Bible is the very food of the Christian. Just like our physical bodies would be malnourished and eventually die without physical food, so too will our spiritual lives shrivel up if we neglect the intake of God’s precious Word; teaching us, reprooving us, correcting us, and training us for all righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).
Therefore, this year, above all else, let us, as God’s beloved children, either commit ourselves afresh or continue with prior commitments, to daily mine the treasure of the Bible. Because I know, with David, we too will find that God’s Words are “More to be desired than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10).
-Shaun M. Hewlett