Why You Should Read Your Bible

Typically, I do not cancel service for rain but when I saw schools letting students out as early as 9:15 this morning and other student ministries cancelling their service, I thought it was best for L3 to be canceled as well. This was to make sure all the students and their families were safe during the storm. We now see that Kingsport did not get the weather it was supposed to; however, if we did meet and something happened I would be devastated. Since we did not have service tonight, here is a short devotion instead.

Psalms 119:9-11: How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart, I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

For a lot of the Americanized Christian Church, the only time people open their Bible is when they get to church if they do not forget it at home, in the car or lost it because they don’t use it regularly. I write that statement out of experience. For us, who call ourselves Christians, we need to continually be in prayer and study the word to grow.

Verse 11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might now sin against you.” This is the whole meaning of this devotion is to encourage us to store up the word. I went to the Xtreme Conference a few years back and this verse was the main theme of the whole conference. Honestly, for me, this was the first time I heard this text. I know it is weird that I did not hear this text until I was a middle school pastor. This verse has stuck with me ever since.

So many times, Christians take what their pastor says or what they hear from other Christians as the truth. As much as pastors and other Christians want to tell the truth there still can be human error in interpretations and meanings. As Christians, we need to set aside time every day to “store up the word” and to be able to know the truth for ourselves. It’s the same way when you have a project due at school and you must research a topic. You don’t want to take someone’s word and not research for yourself because if you do and they were wrong, you will not make a good grade. Even so in life the importance of studying the Word so you can know for yourself what is right and what is wrong so you don’t have to depend on anyone else to tell you so. We all want to be righteous and glorify God in our actions but we must know and understand the word for us to get to that point.

The second part of the verse is “that we might not sin against God”. None of us want to dishonor God or what he says but we don’t know what is right or wrong unless we know his words. Study the Bible on your own and your spiritual growth will grow rapidly. To prevent sinning and following God, even more, we must store up the word to glorify God in our actions.

My prayer is even when we do not have church on Wednesdays or any other day when church is not offered, Christians want to read the scripture and find truth on their own. My challenge is this: Take the time each day to search the Bible and find the truth in scripture. That way you can resist temptation and know the truth when the world is full of lies.