Why You Need To Use Your Bible – Part 1 of 2

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Now today we are going to talk about a message on using your Bible. This is very important. Before we get into it, I have a couple of statistics. The Bible is the most widely-read book in history. More people reference the Bible – quote the Bible than any other book.

Now a lot of them could be referencing like, “Oh the Bible says you shouldn’t steal” or something generic. They know somewhere it is in the Bible, but maybe they don’t know exactly where it is.

Or they reference it, but they don’t know the scripture that backs up their reference. They simply say, “Oh it is in the Bible” or “The Bible says this” or “The Bible says not to lie” or “The Bible says not to cheat,” but they don’t know exactly what the Bible says.

Roughly 50 million copies are printed each year, 50 million, and of course, it is electronic now too – the Bible app. There have been over 6 billion copies distributed throughout history and 92% of households own at least one Bible.

Now that is American households, 92% of American households own at least one Bible. How many do you have? How many Bibles do you have in your house, in your possession?

Think how fortunate we are to be able to have multiple when some people can’t even get one. What do you use your Bible for? Is it sitting on the shelf collecting dust? Is it a paperweight? Is it something you move around or that you have as an ornament, that you just take with you to church but then at home right back on the bookcase?

Seriously, what do you use your Bible for? I use this one right here for preaching, you have seen me hold it up before. You have seen me use it. It is worn. I like it because it is kind of small. It has got this leather binding, I don’t mind that it is falling apart, that means it is well-used. I page through it all the time. I read from it.

I have other Bibles too. I use this one here, this one for travel because it is small. The print is tiny but it is okay. I use this one when I travel, it goes right in a backpack or a suitcase, not to worry right there.

I have got another Bible. This one I use about every other year, every couple of years. It is the one-year Bible and it is a reading plan that has every single day of the year and you just read one section every single day, about 15 to 25 minutes depending on how quickly you read and how much you want to sit and meditate on the word day and night.

I have another one. This one right here is another one-year Bible plan. I prefer this one because it is the chronological Bible. I have read through this one too. I really enjoyed it. It was in chronological order so a different order than the canonized books of the Bible. They are all still here, just a different order.

Then of course this one here, this is my Bible, my favorite Bible. This is my personal reading Bible, my daily reading Bible. Right here, this is the one that travels with me to church or to places like that. So myself, I have five Bibles right here that I just showed you, and I bet if I went around the house, I would have even more that I could pull out.

I have one in my car that I keep in my car, a little pocket Bible, so there is another one. I know I have a couple on the shelf upstairs, a Catholic Bible and another King James Bible. Then I have another Bible that is a big book, it is 3 Bibles in one and every verse has one column or every translation has one column.

It has like the NIV, the New King James, and maybe the NLT or ESV, something like that. It just goes right through the Bible and you can read all 3 translations side by side, so that is pretty cool. I have a couple old Bibles, like really old from the early 1900s or 1800s that just kind of sit up on display.

I have a Bible from the Bible Project. It is a big thing and it is not really a Bible, but it is their storylines of all the books in the Bible. Think of all of that stuff that we can get our hands on. You can go buy a Bible on Amazon. You can get them on eBay. You can walk down to the corner store. Walmart might even have a Bible.

Some countries cannot get them. Think how fortunate we are. Of course, I also have the Bible app on my phone as well and then we have the internet so we can search all of that stuff in our country. We can type out a section of a verse and it comes right up. Think how fortunate we are to have that.

The strange and very very sad part is, even with all these Bibles around, maybe your house is the same, you might have a bunch of Bibles, only one-half of Americans can even name the first book in the Bible. The first book. Can you name that? That is incredible that only one-half can name that first book. All those Bibles out there and millions of people don’t even know.

They haven’t opened the cover and taken a glance. It has been an ornament on their shelf. It has been something that they are too afraid to use because they don’t want the cover to look like this, to start peeling up. They don’t want it to get damaged. They are worried that their pages might get ripped or something. Don’t worry, use your Bible.

Look, this is a Bible that I got secondhand. I got it because I really liked it. But check this out, someone else had really used the Bible. They underlined all over the place in this book and now I don’t know what happened that I got it second hand, that someone gave it up, but the point is they went through and underlined it all. Don’t be afraid to use your Bible. That is what it is for.

Crack that cover open. Read those pages. People are afraid to use their Bible. No wonder the world is the way it is. Look at our world today. Does it look like all of these people who claim that they are Christians out there are reading their Bible and doing what it says? Not from what I see. Satan is clearly removing the true God from the Earth. Don’t let him get ahead. You must use your Bible and encourage others to do the same.

Now let’s get to some words of encouragement. Joshua was told to go and do some things in the Bible, and we are going to read a verse that will help you hopefully do some things as well and encourage you to read the Bible.

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” That is Joshua 1:8. Again, all these references will be written down below in the description so you can come back and check them out anytime or share them with others.

“Meditate on it day and night.” What does that mean? Are you to sleep with your Bible? No, it means read the words and then ponder them. Think about them, talk about them with other people, get their thoughts, their opinions, and let stuff kind of build up in you so that you are constantly thinking about the word and trying to understand it and know what God is saying and let it speak to you. This is your road map to life, your owner’s manual.

Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.” This Word is the lamp for our feet and the light for our path. This world is darkness. It is run by the devil. We are walking through. How do we see? How do we have light? Well, we have the Bible which is light to our path.

When we read the Bible, and internalize it, and ask Jesus into our lives, we become the light as well and now we are the light of the world. Be the light. We have talked about that before, how important it is for you as a Christian to get out there and be the light of the world.

If you don’t read the Bible, if you don’t use your Bible, you will fall and you will stumble exactly like millions of people who cannot even say the name of Genesis. It is very incredible; they are falling away from God. Don’t let it be you and don’t let it become any of the people that you know.

Psalm 119:11 is another great verse and says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Hide the Word in your heart. How do you do that? Start memorizing the Bible. Maybe you know you need some help memorizing the Bible or you don’t know what to memorize. Purchase a book for kids.

Get an Awana book or some kind of a Sunday school book that has little verses in there and checkpoints or sections to go through and memorize them. Say them to someone and then they get signed off and then continue on.

If you haven’t memorized verses in the Bible, start doing it. Even do it at home or with your family or become a leader at church with one of those programs, so that when the children are saying those verses, you can be memorizing with them as well. You can have your own book and you could have the kids sign off on your sections if you wanted.

Be different. We are different. We are Christians. We are to be different in this world. Now if you are saying, “What is a Christian” or “What is the real Christian?” That is simply asking Jesus into your life, acknowledging that you are a sinner, you have sinned, you have fallen short of the glory of God.

You say, “Jesus, thank you for dying for me.” He died. He paid your price. His blood covered your sins and He did that for you. Then you just need to say, “Thank you for doing that, I am sorry, forgive me for my sins, and come into my life.” Then allow Him to lead your life.

You can’t be in control anymore all the time. You have to let Jesus lead your life. You are still doing everything here on Earth. You are simply doing it with the Bible guiding it because you have Jesus in you. The Spirit inside of you. You are supposed to be drawn to do good out of your love for Him. It is something that you do out of your love for Him.

Now reading the Bible, are you obligated to read your Bible? No, you are not obligated to read your Bible. It is not something that if you don’t do something bad is going to happen or this or that, however, if you read and internalize this book, your life will be much better off.

Why? Why will your life be better off? Because by internalizing and acting on these words, you will understand and know so much more than you would have without it. This Bible is something that you must internalize and do.

Remember how James said we must be doers of the Word? We have talked about that before on how if you are the type of person who listens to the Word or you are reading the Bible and then you are not even doing it, it is like a person who forgets what they look like. They forget their face in the mirror. So not only should you read this Bible, but you must get out there and do what it says. That is very important.

Now how should you read your Bible? Well like I said, there are a variety of different plans out there. My recommendation is to start out with a one-year Bible plan. This is a very very great book.

Unfortunately, the one-year plan starts in January and then just goes through. So a lot of people then believe that they have to start it in January. Right now it is not January and so I can’t do this, I have to wait until next year. Wrong.

Don’t wait. Get the book and start it, whether it says January first and you are starting it on June first, it doesn’t matter. Just keep going through and read it in one year. Read one of these Bibles. Even if you say, “You know what, I can’t read that much, I can’t read that much of the Bible at one time,” then read some in the morning and some in the night. That is what I did one time.

This is the New Testament, the Old Testament, and then they have some Psalms and Proverbs that they lay out in here. The best part, what you can do is, you could read part of it in the morning and part of it at night.

Maybe you read the New Testament section in the morning and the Old Testament at night or maybe you read the Old Testament and Proverbs in the morning and then you read the New Testament and Psalms at night.

How ever you want to do it. But then you could split it up and you would only have half the reading, but you do it twice a day. Whatever the case may be, it is very important. This is a great way to start reading the Bible. It is a plan. It has a schedule. It is very very easy to follow. It tells you what day and you just go through it right through.

Now I say do this one because this is the traditional layout of the Bible. Once you complete that book don’t stop. Don’t be like, “All right, I read the Bible. I’m good.” No, get on another one. Grab the chronological version and start reading it in order of the events that happened. This is so great.

Once you have an understanding of the Bible, which we are going to talk about understanding the Bible next week, it is kind of a little dual sermon two-part series here, but we are going to talk about understanding the Bible next week.

Once you, kind of, understand the Bible, you have the stories in your head. You know some of the characters, the people, and you have the history, then start reading it chronologically so you can put it in order in a series of events.

When you finish that one, that would be two years, two years of reading the Bible. Your life will change. I promise you your life will change. Then if you want to read it on your own, you know you could do something like every day you just kind of flip open a random thing, and whatever book you land on you could start reading on that page and just finish then a few chapters.

Read ten chapters a day or five chapters a day or ten pages a day or 5 pages a day. Flip it open or start at the beginning and read 5 pages a day. There are also some great resources on your phone to read the Bible.

You can get the Bible app; it is free and there are Bible reading plans where they can send you a notification every day and you can read your Bible right there on your phone if that appeals to you.

For me, I really like holding it in my hands, feeling it, seeing it, touching it, and reading those words. There is so much in here. It is really really incredible. So make an effort to start memorizing and learning Scripture; know the books of the Bible. Memorize them. You are not too old. Find out how many Bibles you have in your house. Count how many Bibles you own.

Comment below. Let’s comment below with how many Bibles you have, and are you reading them? What is your favorite one? What translation do you prefer? I like the NIV or the New International Version, but what translation do you prefer? Comment below.

Do you have Bible reading plans? Comment below this message. This isn’t a heavy lesson today. We are talking about getting in and reading your Bible and I am challenging you seriously to start reading your Bible. Remember Joshua 1:8, “Meditate on it day and night.” Do not let “this Book of the Law depart from your lips; meditate on it day and night.”

Proverbs has plenty of passages on how you are to keep the book of the law or keep the Word in you. Let this guide your life. Let wisdom guide your life. This is wisdom right here. “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.” That is Psalm 119:105. This is your lamp.

If you are stumbling through life and you feel like you are struggling, you don’t know where you are going, what you are doing, every day is kind of a repeat of the same and it is mundane and it is not working out. You are stumbling. Do you have this as the light to light your path?

If reading the Bible is not a part of your daily life and you are stumbling and struggling through life, this can help you. It can be your change, start reading it and watch as your life changes. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, thank You so much for providing us with Your word, with the Bible, with all the information we need in order to live a great life. I ask that each and every person out there watching and listening, that they would be challenged and inspired to start reading the Bible.

Lord, may they instantly after watching this, may they punch up something on their phone to get a Bible reading plan or to purchase one of the one-year Bible plans, or get involved with some type of a group that is reading the Bible. That they start reading and internalizing and then externalizing it by speaking about it with others and doing what the Bible says.

Lord, I ask that you would show them a change in their life as a result of doing this, of reading the Bible and acting on what it says. That this would be their roadmap to life, their owner’s manual, the lamp to their feet, and light to their paths. That they can go out and become the light of the world by having the Bible within them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thanks again for your time today, it is very important. Read your Bible. Use your Bible. It seriously is very very important and it will change your life. I would love to hear your comments below or to see your comments below.

What is your favorite version of the Bible? What translation do you like? In addition, how many Bibles do you have and do you use them? Comment with that below. That would be great for me to see. God bless.

“Why You Should Read the Bible Daily” – The Only Bible