Profoundly PK

In order to understand the importance of reading and studying the Bible for growing in our Christian lives, we need to understand the nature, purpose and workings of the Christian life. The essential nature of the Christian life is all about enjoying a restored right relationship with God our Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ and by the enabling for the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:3-14). Our old life was one of a wrong and broken relationship with God that resulted from sin. Sin, in its essence, is being self-centred rather than God-centred (Isa 53:6). However, our new life in Christ – as we truly embrace Jesus Christ as Lord – is one with God at the very centre, where He takes the highest place.

When we become Christians, we did not sign up for a club, a society, a denomination or a church – we signed up for a person, the Lord Jesus (Phil 3:7-11). Being a Christian by definition is being a follower of Christ. The essential purpose of the Christian life is to follow Christ in that relationship and to find our place is His purposes (Phil 3:12-14), which involves making Him and His salvation known to the earth and seeing His kingdom established in our lives and that of others.

The Christian life works when we use every God-given means to benefit from and enjoy all that Christ purchased for us at the Cross and has been made available to us by His Spirit (Rom 8:31-32). Once God is at the centre of our lives, then the Bible, God’s written Word, must automatically also come to the centre of our lives. God and His Word are intrinsically linked (Psa 138:2); Jesus is the personal Word of God, and the Bible is the written Word of God, and the Christian life does not work well if we try to take one without the other. We cannot grow in our knowledge of God except by growing in the knowledge and application of His Word. We cannot know what Jesus has purchased for us at the Cross other than by knowing it from the Bible, made alive to us by the Holy Spirit. We cannot even properly know ourselves except by God’s help through His Word. Furthermore, our love for Jesus is expressed and made real by our obedience to His Word (John 14:23).

The Bible makes it clear that once Jesus has become the foundation, the Rock, of our lives, we grow and build on that foundation by living according to His Word, i.e. by hearing and doing what He says (Mat 7:24-27). In the natural, we need food and nourishment to grow. In the Christian life, God’s nourishment for us to grow is in His Word. The Bible is pure milk for the new and young believer, a staple of bread for daily living, and solid food for those who are mature (1 Pet 2:2-3; Mat 4:4; Heb 5:11-14) – in other words, the Bible contains what we need to grow no matter what stage we are at in the Christian life.

Once we give the Bible its proper place in our lives, studying and applying it, then it can become to us all that it has promised to be. Some, but by no means all, of these blessings and benefits are listed below:

• It reveals to us the nature, character and attributes of God, showing us the One we desire to know intimately and be like (John 5:39; Luke 24:27).
• It reveals God’s calling and purposes for us in this life (Mat 28:18-20).
• Living by it results in a growing revelation of Jesus and intimacy with Him (John 14:21).
• It reveals to us the will of God and thereby enables us to pray effectively (1 John 5:14-15).
• In living by it, we will be established and blessed (Psa 1; Mat 7:24-27; James 1:22-25).
• It washes and cleanses us (John 15:3; Eph 5:25-27).
• It ministers healing to us from God (Psa 107:20; Prov 4:20-22).
• It accomplishes the purposes of God (Isa 55:10-11).
• It reveals our heart (Heb 4:12).
• It shows us who we are, by correcting our wrong thinking, character and behaviour, and revealing who we truly are in Christ Jesus (Jam 1:22-25).
• It teaches us all that God has promised us in Christ (2 Cor 1:20).
• It is able to save those who receive the Word of God (2 Tim 3:14-15; Jam 1:21; 1 Pet 1:23).
• It instructs, corrects, reproves and trains us in righteousness, equipping us for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17).
• It directs us (Psa 119:105).

As well as receiving these benefits of the Bible for ourselves, we also learn about our privilege, responsibility and capacity to pass these on to others (Mat 10:7-8; Mat 28:18-20).

In addition to teaching us by instruction, the Bible also teaches us powerfully by life examples. Seeing other people’s experiences with God creates in us a desire for more and inspires us to pursue and enter into the same. The Bible is a window into the unknown. The Christian life is about reaching out for where we have never been before in our relationship with God and our journey with Him. The Bible informs us of what can be, motivating us to press on and lay hold of all that for which Christ laid hold of us (Phil 3:12-14). Without the Word of God, it is easy to settle into a less-than-God-intended, man-made version of Christianity. However, through the Bible made alive to us by the Holy Spirit, God continually calls us into pursuing Him and His great purposes, and beckons us to reach out to become all that He has made us to be.