Gift #3: The Bible
I
hope you are having a great day today. I
am continuing with my series on gifts, and I have a few more gifts to talk
about. Again, I apologize for not
writing blogs as often as I normally have in the past.
The next gift that I would like to talk about
is another completely wonderful, awesome gift!
It is the gift of the Bible! When
I first became a Christian, the believers at a Church that I was attending at
the time (Mount Olive Baptist Church in Goldsboro North Carolina) taught me
that I needed to become a disciple of Jesus and develop disciplines in my life. The four disciplines that they encouraged me
to develop was Prayer, Bible study, Worship, and Witnessing. Now that it is forty-seven years later, I am
very thankful that I had those disciplines in my life! I would like to encourage you to develop
these disciplines in your life. There
are so many benefits to reading the Bible on a regular basis and I would like
to go into detail on a few of those reasons.
There are a number of ways that you can read the Bible. I have found that the most efficient way is
just to pick up where you left off from the day before. I guess you could spend some of your time
praying for God to direct you as to where to read specifically, but I find that most
of the time that I just continue reading where I have left off – something
remarkable happen! There have been a
number of times in my life that what I read in the morning, was some great
direction on how to respond to my day.
One
time I was traveling with a good friend out of town, and we ran into a
disagreement on where to stay the night. I wanted to stay somewhere that was much
cheaper. It turned out to be a bit more
serious to me than what I expected and threatened to put a downer on the trip. The next time I was reading the Bible, I
picked up where I left off in Proverbs 17 and read in verse 9 “Whoever forgives
and offense seeks love, but whoever keeps bringing up the issue separates the
closest of friends.” (GW Translation). I
decided that it was a good idea to overlook the issue and just move on. I decided that friendship was more important
than my feeling offended. The rest of
the time my attitude was better, and the trip was very enjoyable. We were attending a Christian conference and
the next day as I was walking into the Church, a man came up to me that I had
known a few years before. He told me
that God impressed upon him to do something and placed an envelope in my
hand. When I looked at it later, it was
the exact amount of money to cover my share of the hotel stay. I think that God had rewarded my obedience.
There was another instance that the Bible help me find some direction in
life. I was in a work situation where I
felt that my supervisor was being a little verbally abusive to me. I was trying to be respectful back to them,
but they were not changing their approach.
As I was reading my Bible, I was reminded that Jesus asked us to “love
our enemies” in Luke 6:27. I thought that I should take some direct
action to be nice and out of the blue, I took in a small loaf of banana bread
that I had made to work and gave it to my supervisor. I think that she didn’t know what to make of
it, but she seemed a lot nicer to me after that.
Many
years ago, I was working as a volunteer youth pastor, and I was trying to
impress upon the kids on how important it was to read the Bible. I remember asking the Pastor’s daughter who
was in my class, why she liked to read the Bible? Her answer kind of surprised me and I have
thought about it many times since then and I have really liked it. She felt put on the spot, and said that as
she read the Bible, she just felt a lot of peace. I very much agree. There are many reasons to make it a daily practice.
Another thing that I would like to mention about reading the Bible is
the value of reading the various translations.
I have made it a practice for many years that when I finish reading the
Bible to the end, I will get a different version to read through for the next
year. I have read many versions of the
Bible. My favorites are: The King James
version seems to work the best for me for memorization. I love the NIV, and the Good News Bible, and
God’s Word version for clarity, and when I am in the mood for deep study, I
love the Amplified Bible. I have told
people for years that since the Greek language is so descriptive, it is good to
read different versions. I compare it to
looking at a diamond at various different angles.
The
last thing that I would like to encourage concerning the Bible is the value of
memorizing some verses. Shortly after I
graduated from High School, I read a book about the Vietnam War called “The
Hanoi Hilton.” The title was a sarcasm
about the horrible prisoner of war camp in Hanoi. The book told the story of men that had
survived the horrible abuse there. One
story that I read was about a Christian man who said that when he was in his
darkest moments, if he could remember a verse from the Bible – it was a
tremendous encouragement to him. I
remember thinking that if I was in a difficult situation like that, I wonder
how many verses I would be able to remember.
As a result, I have tried to memorize a lot of verses and they have been
a wonderful help to me. I would like to
challenge you to memorize at least one verse for every year that you have been
a Christian. I know that it will be a
worthwhile investment!
God
bless you as you enjoy His gift of the Bible.
Read it often, take it to heart, and try and do what it says to do.
Written by Lee Malden 2023
For more information: email lmalden@hotmail.com
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