If you look up a list of the Ten top selling books of all time, you will find the Holy Bible sitting on top of the heap! It is estimated that over 6 Billion copies of the Bible have been sold world wide. The nearest competitor comes in at just over 600 million. I am looking over at my bookshelf as I write this, and from my desk I can see 7 copies of the Bible in plain sight. If I dug a little deeper Im sure that I could come up with a few more copies that are tucked away. My I phone has a Bible application that includes every known version of the Bible that exists today.
If you don't own a copy of the Bible it's your fault. You can download it for free, send for a free copy from me, or walk to most any Christian Church and get one. OR, the next time you check into a hotel…….TAKE THE BIBLE! Yes I told you to steal the Bible. Do you know what will happen if you take the Bible out of a Hotel room? A Gideon will magically appear like a Gnome, and put it right back! That is why they place them there. For you to have.
It's safe to say that the Bible is more available now, than any other time in our history, however it's less read now than any other time in our history! How do I know that? Its simple. If people read the Bible it would change the way they live their lives. You see the Bible is unlike any other book that has ever been written It's different from Treasure Island, Oliver Twist, Shades of Gray, and the Twilight Series. As a matter of fact I have never met anyone that has said: " I read the Twilight series and I really think God was speaking to me. He was saying "Be a Vampire, Be a Vampire!!" No one ever reads Treasure Island and says: " I think God wants me to be a pirate". However countless thousands have read the Bible and come away saying "God spoke to me through the Bible!" Why is that? Because the Bible is how God chooses to reveal Himself to us.
The Bible says about itself in Hebrews 4:12: "For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart". It is a book that God actively uses to speak to the hearts of people. Why then if it is so widely available and the testimony is so powerful, do people, even Christians not bother to read it?
I want to challenge you to discover or re-discover the Bible this year. If you don't know where to begin or how to start, keep these tips in mind.
1) Don't worry about how much or how fast you read the Bible. Take your time. I have a friend named Jeremy Kingsley who said :"Read the Bible through in a year, why? We don't read the Bible to finish it. We read it to change." Let God change and correct you as you go.
2) Remember the Bible is a lamp to your feet, not a spotlight for your future. Have you ever been in a dark room where you couldn't see where to step? You light a match or use the light of your phone not to light the entire room, but to see your next step. The Bible wants to give you light for that day. When you read ask God to show you your next step.
3) Learn to read the Bible in its context. One of the single greatest dangers of Bible reading is to take the verse out of its context. Read the passage and let it speak to you in the context of which it was written
4) Be a doer not just a hearer. So many of us know what the Bible says, but often times we don't DO what it says. Don't just read it. Let is sink in, and affect the way you live you life.
*For more tips on getting a Bible, reading a Bible, and putting the principles of the Bible to work in your life. Contact Chris at: Chris@chriswells.org
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