I Will Be A Student Of The Word Series

I Will Be…A Diligent Student of the Word

Introduction:

We in all aspects of our Christian walk need to strive to do more at all times for the Lord and for the up building of His Kingdom. If you are like me, then there are some areas in life where we can improve and do better, there are some things you may need to remove from your life or some things that you may need to make a part of your life. I pray though we never get to the place in life where we stop trying our best and that we never are content with where we are, but I pray that we are always striving to do more and be more for the Lord each day.

There has been no book more feared, more controversial or more opposed than the Bible.

Just like with prayer, there is no place in Scripture that tells us how much and how often we should read our Bibles.

One survey by the Barna Research Group found that among those claiming to be Christians only 18 percept, that’s less than two out of every ten read the Bible every day. Worse than that 23 percent, nearly one out of four say they never read the Word of God.

If your growth in godliness were measured by the amount of your Bible intake, what would be the result? For too long people in the church have been content with Biblical illiteracy. If there were to be an exam that measured our Biblical knowledge than perhaps many of us would fail. I understand that knowledge is meaningless without application, but even Paul prayed that the Christians might grow in their knowledge and dept of insight. I have heard many people say that people in the churches today are more ignorant of the Bible than ever before. Here we have the Bible in our possession and many of us fail to utilize the greatest tool we have. For years the Bible remained chained to the pulpits of the church and the people were taught a lie that they could not read the Bible or study it themselves because they were not a part of the “clergy”, so for years people in churches blindly accepted what was taught without any ability to study or read for themselves the Living Word of God. Now, we have the Bible available to us, we have the chance to study and learn, we have the duty to rightly divide the Word, most likely many of us have numerous Bibles in our homes, but I hope they are not collecting dust. This Word came to us at a great cost. Many people lost their lives in the preservation of that Word, and now many of us refuse to read it or study it.

The Scriptures liken our growth process in Christ to that of the way that we as people grow up physically. In Christ we start out as babes, needing the nourishment of milk. The reason a newborn baby does not eat solid food is not simply because they cannot chew it, but also because they cannot digest it. In the same way a babe in Christ may not be able to digest some spiritual solid food, it will be difficult to understand and digest, but as we grow we better be on solid food and off of the milk.

When Hannah was on all her crazy baby foods I tried some of them on a dare from Stephanie. Some of them were not too bad, but some were out right awful. Staying on spiritual food is like eating that nasty baby food for your whole life, when you could be eating a big fat juicy steak. People have been content on the spiritual milk and do not strive for the solid food.

Babies in third world countries that are starving actually begin to loose their appetites due to malnourishment. A lack of appetite indicates a serious illness. A lot of times when relief workers will go over to these places and bring food to those that are starving and malnourished they have to force the people because they have lost their appetites.

There are many Christians that are seriously spiritually malnourished and they have lost their appetites for the Word of God. The Bible is our source of spiritual nourishment. We cannot expect to grow and stay strong in our faith apart from a regular diet of the Word of God. We as a church obviously cannot force-feed you, but we want to inspire a desire within you to desire and crave the word of God.

Why some people do not become students of the Word of God…

1. Some See the Bible As Just Another Book

Some people do not become diligent students of the Word because to them the Bible is just another book. Perhaps some of the people that think like this have read the Bible, but see no importance in keeping on reading the Bible. It is a book of stories to them that has no real meaning or application. Therefore, naturally the people that think like that will not be students of the Word and will never become more than an occasional Bible reader.