Eating And Digesting Series

Eating and Digesting

Rev 1:3, Deu 17:18-19, Acts 17:11, 2 Tim 2:15, Heb 5:12-14

November 3, 2003

I. Last week I talked about the importance of developing the habit of spending time with God’s Word. And, we talked about ways to improve our hearing.

A. And, it is vital to our Spiritual growth that we be ready and eager to hear God, that we confess any sin in our life, that we take notes on what we hear, and keep a spiritual note book, and that we act on what we hear.

B. Today I want to get into some of the other things that we didn’t get to last week about how we develop the habit of spending time with God’s word.

C. We re going to look at the second thing that helps us develop the habit of spending time with God’s word. HOW TO READ GOD S WORD.

D. For those you who were here last week and did the drawing of the hand. First we just had the little pinky finger, now we re going to add the ring finger.

II. How do you read God s Word? The Bible says in (Rev 1:3 NIV) Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

A. What that is saying is, "Happy is the one who reads this book and obeys what is written in it."

B. How often should we read God s word? The Bible says you should read it daily

C. (Deu 17:18-19 NIV) When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees.

D. Or as the New Living Translation says it "When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy these laws on a scroll for himself in the presence of the Levitical priests.

He must always keep this copy of the law with him and read it daily as long as he lives. That way he will learn to fear the Lord his God by obeying all the terms of this law. "

E. God wants us to read the His Word on a daily basis.

III. Here are some suggestions on how to read the word of God.

A. FIRST YOU NEED TO READ IT SYSTEMATICALLY. You don t use the dip and skip method. A lot of people do this. They sit down on the bed at night and start to feel guilty -- "I ve got to read my Bible!" -- so wherever you open it up that s where you start. That can be dangerous.

1. Some of you might have heard of the guy who said, "Lord, I want to know your will for my life." He opened up his Bible and put his finger down and it said, "Judas went out and hung himself" He thought, "That couldn’t be right." So he closed his Bible and opened it again and put his finger down and it said, "Go thou and do likewise." He thought, "Lord, this couldn’t be right. ." He opens it a third time and puts his finger down and it said, "And what thou doest, do quickly."

2. The dip and skip method of reading the bible can be dangerous. That s the kind of results you re going to get if you use the dip and skip method, the cafeteria style approach.

3. We need to pick a book of the Bible and read it a book at a time. When you read a letter you don t read the last part then the first part, then the middle. You read it straight through. Many of these books in the New Testament are letters. They re meant to be read straight through.

4. Also most bibles have sub heading in them, that group the verses together. When we read we need to read at least all of one sub heading because if we don’t we won’t get the whole idea that the writer was trying to get across.

5. So read it systematically from beginning to end. And you need to read all the Bible, not just your favorite parts. Some of you get stuck in Psalms and Proverbs and the Gospels. It s going to be pretty embarrassing when some of you get to heaven and Habakkuk comes up and says, "How did you like my book?" and you re not even going to know he was in the Bible. You need to read the whole thing.