In our last visit we discussed the importance of getting the tools together for doing Bible study.
When you have the tools you need to make time for the task. Jesus was wakened by His Father morning by morning. According to Isaiah 50:4-5, it would be wise to pray that God would awaken you, open your ears and teach you.
You also need a place where you can keep your tools and where you can study undisturbed. Habakkuk the prophet said, “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint” (Habakkuk 2:1).
When you have everything ready, don’t go to the task with a legalistic mind-set. If you do, you will miss the message as the people did whom Jesus addressed in John 5:39: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” It is not a matter of reading the Bible so you can check off that duty and feel good about it. Reading the Bible is to discover what it has to say about Jesus and then to trust in Him and obey Him.
We also should delight in the Word of God. Psalm 1:1-3 says, “Blessed is the man…(whose) delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
Finally, as you read and study the Bible we should expect God to teach us. So it’s a matter of gathering the tools, giving the time and getting on with the task of Getting the Message from God’s Word.
