Reading the Bible
In September I challenged those in our church to read through the Bible in 90 days to finish by the end of the year. We know that George Muller from his journals read through the Bible four times a year on his knees. Muller founded schools and orphanages in England while praying and receiving God’s provision for those schools and orphanages. Later in life in his 80s his health improved, and he traveled the world as an evangelist. I am not reading the Bible on my knees, but I am at times listening and reading at the same time. It has been refreshing and empowering for me as I have been reading rapidly through the Bible.
As we are reading the Word of God, we need to remember that the Bible is medicine and it is, medicine for the soul and even more it is medicine for the body.
Looking for this in Scripture I found Proverbs 4. Now Proverbs is known as the Wisdom Book. Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.”
It helps in understanding Proverbs that they are the Words of God mediated to us through Solomon and a few others. It also helps in understanding that Wisdom is a person, and that person is in reality, Jesus Christ.
With that in mind here is what we are told in Proverbs 4:20-23:
My son, give attention to my words;
Incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them depart from your eyes;
Keep them in the midst of your heart;
For they are life to those who find them,
And health to all their flesh.
Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.
The more wisdom, the more Jesus you have, the more life you will have spiritually and physically. And, as we know from John 1, the Word of God is Jesus.
Whenever we are reading or listening to the Bible, we are spending time with our Lord. We may not fully understand at the time, but those words are life and the things the Lord would want us to understand at the time the Holy Spirit reveals to us.