Christian Living: Bible Reading
Why Read the Bible Daily: Reason 4
So far, we have considered three reasons for reading the Bible daily -- God has commanded it, it reveals God to us, and it nourishes us. And now…
- Reading the Bible Guards Our Minds
Ground zero in the spiritual battle is the mind – what we think. Our convictions and ideas determine how we live and how we see life and the world. For example, when God determined to destroy most of the human race in a flood it was because he saw, “that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). In Scripture “the heart” is not merely the seat of our feelings, it very much includes the mind and is the driving force of our lives.
The Bible also warns that the world, meaning the world system that is hostile to God, will try constantly to squeeze us into its mold. What is the solution? “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). If we let our thinking simply drift it will always drift away from God and along with the world. We do not drift towards holiness. This is a consistent theme in the Bible. Paul warns us that we “must no longer live as the Gentiles (read pagans without God) do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them…” (Ephesians 4:17-18).
The mind tends to think what it is fed, and whether we are aware of it or not our minds are being fed all the time. Family members influence our thoughts for good or bad. Teachers want to feed our minds. Our televisions, phones, laptops and tablets are constantly feeding our minds. The movies and news we watch, the influencers we listen to, the books and articles we read, the crowds at the mall and neighbors we chat with, are all influencing our minds. As with bodily food it takes a constant effort and a conscious choice to feed out minds what is healthy.
Many Christians rely on yesterday’s (spiritual) food for today’s health. They assume that since they are very familiar with their Bibles, perhaps because they have been active Christians for years, they have a built-in protection against spiritual compromise. They can rely on the truths they have in the bank. There is some truth to this, but only some truth. The reality is that there are two parts to our memories – unconscious memory and conscious memory. We do not live off truths we unconsciously know; we live only off the truths we are consciously thinking about. For example, I may very well know that I should guard my tongue because it is “set on fire by hell” (James 3:6) but if that truth is buried deep in my unconscious memory, I may blurt out regrettable things without thinking. God wants to talk to us each day for today’s needs. Unfortunately, many long-term Christians do not live with fresh thoughts of God and his ways because they do not have fresh thoughts of him and his ways. Daily Bible reading will solve that problem.