God’s Word is so important – for the lost and the saved. It is powerful to save and it is capable of penetrating the hardest heart. It is substantial. It is enough. It doesn’t need to be added to or improved by changing or removing words. God’s Word gets right to the root of sin and convicts us when we are not living our life in accordance with the Bible.

Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Sometimes as believers, we get lazy in our reading of God’s Word. We know we should read it, but we don’t make it a priority. Or we settle for something inferior, like an uplifting post on Facebook or Instagram. Maybe we are regularly spending time in God’s Word, but we don’t let it get down in the deep places of our heart and soul. Instead, we read it with a motive or an agenda or for someone else. We read it for surface content and something to ease our feelings and emotional turbulence. It’s like we read it with our fingers in our ears, unable to hear the conviction or teaching that needs to be heard.

Don’t discount God’s Word by using it as a checklist.

Don’t misuse God’s Word by using it as a justification tool.

We often apply zero value or limited value to God’s Word and just regard it as an old history book with boring and ancient stories of people we never met and things we don’t care to know about. What a sad reality for so many. It’s a shame when we get distracted and either treat our Bible reading as a checklist so that it becomes mundane and routine, or we discount its benefit to our life and reduce the reading of it to a waste of time or something we’ll “get around” to doing when we have some spare time.

Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Reading God’s Word is never a waste of time. The Bible is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing the soul and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12). When we ignore God’s Word, we become prone to the temptation of many sins. We grow cold in our faith and complacent in our walk with the Lord. Our Holy Ghost fire diminishes and we begin to blend in more with the world. We are open to the attacks of the enemy and unable to defend ourselves because we forsake the Bible and become weak like helpless animals.

1 Cor. 3:11, “For no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

We need a strong foundation so we can endure through this life. That foundation is Christ and God’s Word. We should build our life on nothing less. When we don’t have the strong foundation of Christ and His Word in our life, we are easily swept away into the sea of our culture and the ways of the lost. We become easily confused and forget the Truth.

Psalm 119:130, “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”

Once that foundation is built – once we have salvation in Christ, we need to build upon it. We need to be maturing in Christ. We grow up in our salvation by reading God’s Word and applying it to our life. What good does it do to just be saved and then wait for heaven? Why would you receive a gift and then just set it on a shelf or put it in a cabinet? That’s what we do with our salvation when we live each day as believers and ignore God’s Word or never read it.

As believers, we should be craving His Word – hearing it, sharing it, proclaiming its Truth. We should desire to learn more about Christ – who He is, what He has done, and what He plans and desires for us. God’s Word provides the encouragement we need to endure our trials. His Word provides the counsel, guidance, and wisdom we need for the decisions we face in our life. The Bible shows us God’s power, His promises, and His commands of which we need to be reminded.

Psalm 1 opens with a description of the “blessed man” as one whose, “delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:1-3).

The Bible nourishes us and helps us grow just as babies grow into adults. The Bible is the water we thirst for and the bread that gives us life. We need to move beyond comfortable and casual Christianity. Many of us are spiritually weak and defeated because we have neglected the power and strength found in God’s Word when we apply it to our life.

If I were to ask you why you don’t read God’s Word regularly, how would you respond?

• It’s kind of boring
• I’m just not much of a reader
• I can’t sit still long enough to concentrate
• I’m so busy and can’t seem to find time to devote to it

But what about the time you spend on social media? You read Facebook posts and blog posts and listen to podcasts don’t you? You read the papers and emails that come home from your child’s school or sent from your favorite bible teacher, author, or ministry. So if you make time for those things, why don’t you make time for God’s Word?

If we’re honest, we can all admit the difficulty we’ve had in trying to have an established reading time or quiet time in God’s Word. No one will argue that it is difficult. The reason it is hard to dedicate the time to reading God’s word is because your flesh doesn’t want to. But your spirit, as a saved person, does want to read the Word. Your Spirit desires those things of the Lord and to grow in your knowledge of God. So which should we favor: the flesh which has a sinful nature and wayward heart, or the Spirit that will live on into eternity? By taking the time to let Scripture minister to your soul, you are caring for the most important part of yourself, and you will reap the benefits for eternity.