reasons to read the Bible

Reading the Bible is a crucial part of our faith and our relationship with God. Without it we wouldn't be able to understand His love and grace for us, nor would we be able to discern good from evil, and His wisdom from the words of the world. Reading Scripture is always important, but I think it is becoming more and more important to dig deeper into it as our culture becomes more and more liberal, and continues to celebrate and encourage evil.  We are facing a huge spiritual battle in our country right now, and the only way we can win is by knowing what Truth is, standing firm, and sticking up for it in every situation. We have to have a firm understanding of God's word in this corrupt and evil culture because we will be led astray if we don’t. Our culture is persuasive and sin, the majority of the time, looks beautiful and enticing. We need God to keep our hearts and eyes fixed on Him. Without Him we will fail and fall into this progressive Christianity culture that is becoming way too popular among Christians in this country. 

So here's why reading your Bible is so important for this:

one ///// to know Who God is.

In order to look at the world around us and form good opinions and decisions, we must first know who God is. Why is the world in desperate need of Him and Him alone? Why is He the only one who can save us? Why is worshipping Him better than worshipping any of the gods from other religions?

When we read the Bible, we read about the characteristics of God and the things He has done since Creation. We need to know those things in order to know why we worship Him and have faith in Him alone in the first place. 

Many people try to distort God. They don't really understand who He is, so they don't want to follow Him. This week, my theology professor said, "Some people describe a God and then say there is no way they would ever believe in Him. Well, I wouldn't believe in that God either." 

The world has created so many false descriptions of who God is, what He loves, what He hates, and what He desires. They then claim they don't want to believe in Him because they think He's an evil, hate-filled, unloving God. But they have it all wrong. 

They say they don't want to follow a god that hates gay people. They don't want to follow a god that hates women. They don't want to follow a god that hates immigrants. But neither do I. And thankfully that isn't the God we serve. 

The only way to fix our broken country is by leading people to God. But we have to make sure these people are seeing and hearing a correct description of Him. Not the description of some false god and not a description of God that is anything but true. We have to know who God is if we're going to lead people to Him. 

two ///// to know what Scripture says. Sadly, it is becoming more and more likely that within the next few generations Christians in America will begin facing real persecution. Christian persecution is the norm around the world, and this country will likely be no different if it continues down the path it’s on right now. A likely result of that is the banning of the Bible. If there comes a time where our Bibles are forcefully taken out of our hands, would we still know what it says? If we have God’s words stored in our hearts and in our minds, the government can’t take it away from us. We have to read, understand, and memorize scripture now. We must teach it to our children and grandchildren because there may come a day when it’s not as readily available to us, especially the parts that speak against the progressive arguments we hear daily. 

three ///// to know His promises.

We have to know what His promises are so that we aren't swayed by the promises that many false gospels offer. The promises of the prosperity gospel and even the promises of progressive Christianity can sound very appealing. I mean, who wouldn't want to be guaranteed health and wealth in response to having faith in God? Who wouldn't want to know that God loves you just the way you are and doesn't expect you to change yourself for Him? But those aren't the things God promises. He promises us health, wealth, love, and acceptance, but not in the way the false gospels preach that He does. He will provide those things for us, but they may not come until we reach heaven. We aren't guaranteed fair and easy lives here on earth. We aren't guaranteed justice in the earthly sense of the word. And we aren't guaranteed money or material wealth just because we have faith in God. 

He promises that He will take care of us and give us everything we need, and a lot of times we automatically assume that means he'll provide money, food, a nice home, and a healthy life. But, first and foremost, He is everything we need. Secondly, He will provide everything we need in His time, but those things aren't always the things we think we need, and they don't always arrive when we think they should.

four ///// to know His thoughts and wisdom.

In order to make decisions and form opinions that align with God's word, we must read the Bible and understand it. If we're trying to base our decisions and opinions on someone else's decisions and opinions, we need to know them and understand them. If we don't know someone well, we won't know how they'd react in that situation or what their view would be on that specific issue. The same is true for God. We must understand Him and know what He says about certain things if we are going to make decisions that align with His word and truth.

Our world is constantly sharing their opinions, many of which don't reflect God or the Bible. In order to stay on the right path, we have to know God's thoughts and wisdom, and in order to know God's thoughts and wisdom, we have to read the Bible.  

five ///// to know His word.

If our understanding of the Bible is not sound, we will be easily swayed when false gospels are preached to us or when sin tempts us. Not knowing God's word was the very reason the fall of man ever happened in the first place. Eve was easily tempted by Satan because she didn't know exactly what God had said. Satan used her weakness in understanding to sneak in and tempt her. "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'" In other words, "Did God really say that?" He knew God said that, but he also knew that Eve wasn't sure if that's what God really had said, so he took advantage of her lack of knowledge. 

Satan knows what the Bible says, and if we don't know, then he'll use it as an opportunity to twist God's word and make us believe that it says something that it really doesn't. Our world is not much different than Eden in Genesis 3. There are constantly people questioning our beliefs, so we must be sound in our understanding of what the Bible really does say about key issues if we don't want to be convinced that it says something it doesn't. 

six ///// to know how we are to live our lives.

The Bible not only tells us about God, but it also tells us about some of the greatest men and women of God in history. While we aren't supposed to follow their actions exactly because they were sinners just like us, we can look to the good parts of their lives for guidance. Especially to the life of Christ. Being a Christian means we are Christ followers, and being a Christ follower means we are trying to be as much like Him as humanly possible. We have to know what Christ did throughout His life if we are trying to be more and more like Him, and the only way to do that is by reading the Bible. 

We can look to Moses to see what it means to follow God even when the things He asks of us seem too big or too scary. We can look to the life of Esther to see what it means to stick up for what you believe. We can look to Daniel to see what it means to follow God rather than man. And we can look to Paul to see what it means to give your life completely for Christ. 

seven ///// to know sin.

Many churches in America tend to sugar coat sin. They don't like to talk about it because it makes people uncomfortable and because it tends to offend people. But it should make us uncomfortable. We have to be aware of our sins if we are going to ask God for our forgiveness and to change our lives. Our world ignores sin, and then blames evil on leaders or certain groups of people. We have to recognize that the reason evil is so prevalent in this world is because we are all born sinners, and will continue to act on that sin if we don't give our lives to God. The only way our world will become less evil is by acknowledging that it is caused by sin and that the love and grace of God are the only things that can make it better. Not electing new leaders. Not shaming certain groups of people. Not advocating for justice. None of those things will change the evil nature of this world because they're not the source of evil. The absence of God is. So we must recognize that the evil we are seeing is a result of sin, and that Jesus is the only person that can fix it. 

eight ///// to know what Truth is.

Our culture is constantly shouting out different truths and demanding that God's truth isn't reality. In order to recognize these lies the world tries to pass off as truth, we must know what the real Truth is. 

Our world demands that there are more than two genders, and that someone can identify as another gender whenever they feel like it. Truth says that God created men and women perfectly in His image, with no fault or mistake. 

Our world demands that social justice is the only way for minority groups to have fair lives and receive justice. Truth says that this world isn't guaranteed to be fair for everyone. In fact, it guarantees it will be hard. Truth says that God is the only one who can grant true justice, not man. 

Our world demands that abortion is health care and part of women's rights.Truth says that life begins in the womb and that God knew us all and had plans for every single life He created and will create before those lives are even conceived. 

Our world demands that women and men are identical. Truth says that men and women have specific roles that are made to compliment each other. The world rarely agrees with Truth because Truth doesn’t feel good. It goes against every fleshly instinct we have. But we should find peace in the fact that the world hates the Truth we stand for because it means we’re standing for the real Truth that Jesus was also hated for. 

nine ///// to know who we are. 

The world tells us we're perfect just the way we are. Progressive Christianity tells us we are worthy of God's love. But in reality, we are neither of those things. We're not enough. We're not perfect. And we definitely aren't worthy to be loved by the One who was killed by our very own sin. We have to truly know the evil nature of our flesh to truly appreciate what Jesus did for us. Sure it's nice to see Him as someone looking out for us, planning out every second of our lives, and giving us everything we need. While He is those things, if we only think of Him in those ways, we miss the whole point of the Gospel. It's amazing because He loved us so much, even while knowing just how evil we are all capable of being, that He still chose to have His son killed so He could spend eternity with us. Once we realize how sinful we really are, we have a whole new appreciation of Jesus, and His love becomes even more unfathomable. 

ten ///// to know that our hope is found in Jesus, not in this world. 

The world is a scary place, and it seems as though it gets scarier and scarier each day. But the good news is that this country isn't our home. This planet isn't even our home. Our home is in heaven with Jesus. This world will fail us. This country will fail us. Our leaders will fail us. Our friends and family will even fail us. But God never will. We have to remember that as we get closer and closer to the final days. Too many people are currently putting their hope in our government leaders, thinking they can save us from the chaos and evil that we're seeing in the country. But they're imperfect, sinful humans who are also evil in nature. We can't look to them to be our saviors. We can't look to them to fulfill a role that only Jesus is capable of fulfilling. Our hope is not found in this world because this world hates the only One who is capable of saving it.