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"All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable…" (2 Timothy 3:16 NIV)
One thing that amazes me, and yet validates the reality of God’s Word as a living document, is the verses that cause my heart to leap for joy, and the commonality of those verses.
I was forty years old before I ever read The Bible, but even now, twenty years later, I still remember the verses that made my heart beat faster when I read them. I will never forget reading the Book of Esther one Thanksgiving at my brother’s house, and how when I read the oft quoted verse fourteen of Chapter Four ("…who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" Vs. 14 NIV) how my breath caught in my throat and my eyes misted over.
Perhaps your own heart beats a little faster when you hear this and, like me, you can remember hearing this verse quoted many times over. There are over thirty-one thousand verses in the Bible. What are the chances that this one verse would be quoted so often? God’s Word is alive.
I like to imagine God’s delight as He inspired the verses that would fire our imagination and cause our hearts to pound as we hear the Word of God and feel its power that goes beyond words. Imagine Him thinking of you as He wrote your favorite verse. What a great God we serve. All that we need to know about God and about how to live for Him are found in His Book. The Bible is the ultimate source of truth and you will see when you seek God in its pages, He is there. Not a dead God, but a Living God and the Living Word of Truth.
We should never rely on anyone else to tell us what is in the Bible. There are many places to hear well- versed preachers and teachers of God’s Word, and listening to teaching is a good thing, but always go to the source personally. Since God’s Word is alive, and He inspired holy men of God to write it for us, it is a personal love letter to you and me.
I had just as many excuses as anyone for why I did not read my Bible, even though I have always had several Bibles. I had the King James Version and I said, as you have probably heard others say, that I couldn’t understand it. The plain truth is that I never tried. When I truly came to the Lord, I listened daily to Bible teaching on the radio, and every preacher, without fail, advised the same thing – read it (the Bible) for yourself.
Finally, I went to my local Christian bookstore and purchased a copy of The New International Version. As I read the words, it was as if God Himself were looking over my shoulder, illuminating the words and whispering in my ear. Even the things that were hard to understand He would make clear, if I only asked. Some things came right away and others I had to think on for a while. He would inspire me to write words of my own in response to what I read, and as the words flowed from my pen almost faster than I could write, He made it clear to me – this is how He wrote the Bible through the pens of the authors. God spoke and He still speaks today. I challenge anyone to read God’s Word with a sincere heart and not be changed and moved to see the truths that have satisfied the greatest minds in human history come alive in their own hearts.
Sonya Elizabeth Richards
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