Motivations for Bible Reading in 2009
Robert Jefferies, Jr.
Have you made your New year’s resolutions yet? By now, most people have. Many times people will include normal things such as: going on a diet, getting out to the gym on a regular basis, eating less chocolate, working harder, spending more time with family, ect. But what about setting some spiritual resolutions? I think many Christians find themselves setting various resolutions of this nature, only to fail very early in the year, and simply give up.
I want to encourage you to think about spending time in God’s Word every day. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, this is something that we all can do I want to share with you a recent article that I read, that should motivate us all.
According to the Barna Research Group, 93% of all households own one or more Bible, but only 12% read them every day, and 57% do not read the Bible at all during a typical week. Why is “the most popular Book in the world” so seldom read? Some don’t believe they have time to read God’s Word. Even “Bible readers” spend only 65 minutes per week actually reading the scriptures, according to Barna. Some have doubts about the inspiration of the Bible. Barna claims only 58% of Americans believe “the Bible is the written word of God, and totally accurate in all that it teaches.” Still, others feel that the Bible has little relevance for living in our postmodern world. Barna states that only 38% actually go to the Bible for help in living their lives. Perhaps there is another reason why Bible reading is not as popular as it used to be. Somehow we have been lead to believe that those who read the Bible are intellectually inferior and academically challenged. In other words, as someone once said, “Bible reading is for losers!” On the contrary, some of the most successful and influential leaders in the world give credit to the Bible for the knowledge and strength they have received. Note the following:
GEORGE WASHINGTON: “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible … He is worse than an infidel who does not read and acknowledge his obligation to God.
THOMAS JEFFERSON: “I have always said and always will say that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better farmers, better husbands ... The Bible makes the best people in the world."
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: “My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising … It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day … It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.”
WOODROW WILSON: “I have a very simple thing to ask of you. I ask every man and woman in this audience that from this day on they will realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this Great Book.”
DANIEL WEBSTER: “From the time that, at my mother’s feet or on my father’s knee, I first learned to lisp the verses from the sacred writings, they have been my daily study and vigilant contemplation.”
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR: “Believe me, sir, never a night goes by, be I ever so tired, but I read the Word of God before I go to bed.”
The psalmist wrote about the blessed (happy) man that “his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he mediates day and night.” (Psalm 1:2). Further, the psalmist wrote, “O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). The Bereans “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11). These verses, among many others, stress the need for reading God’s Word daily.
William McPherson had a charge of dynamite go off in his face. He lost his eyes, hands, and the feeling in parts of his face. He realized how much the Bible meant to him, and how he needed its strength daily. He could not read the Braille Bible because of his artificial hands. He tried to place his lips on the dots, but they were numb. He finally found he could use his tongue to decipher the “Moon Type” system of dashes. The metal left his lips and tongue bleeding and sore, but he prayed to God to help him learn just one letter of the alphabet. In the 65 years that followed, he read the Bible through four times with his tongue! I don’t think William McPherson was a “loser,” do you? (John Tracy)
Conclusion
Maybe, just maybe, you are little more motivated to read God’s Word daily after reading what William McPherson was willing to do in order to drink from the fountain of God’s Word. So let’s challenge ourselves to be daily Bible reader in 2009.[Click here for a daily Bible reading regimen online]
