Why I don't get anything from the Bible? Here are five top reasons why you're not getting
anything from the Bible, and what you can do today to improve your Bible study and to get
things out of the Bible. Now the Bible is the most important book for the Christian. It's the Word of
God. It's God breathed, meaning we experience the breath of God, we experience the truth
of God. It guides us. It leads us. But so many people, they know they need to read the Bible,
they just don't get anything out of it. And so today we're going to explore on how and why
we're not getting anything out of the Bible. The first reason is people don't get anything out of
the Bible because they think the Bible is about them. Now the Scripture helps us to conquer sin,
Psalm 119:11. The Scripture helps us to defeat the devil. That's Ephesians 6:17. The Scripture helps
us to increase our faith, Romans 10:17. And the Scripture gives us wisdom to live a godly life,
Psalm 1: 2-3. But the Bible is not about us. The Bible is about God. The more you read the Bible,
the more you love the Author. The idea of the Bible is not so you will fall in love
with the Bible, though the Scripture has many verses to say that you know, I love Your law,
I love to meditate on Your law. But the Scripture points us to God to fall in
love with the Bible. The Bible is the only book where the Author is in love with the
reader. It's about a relationship between the reader and the Author. CS Lewis said:
James Merritt said:
in Luke 24: 27, Luke tells us that, "The beginning at Moses and all the prophets,
He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." So look at this. Jesus
is giving them a Bible study, goes through the Old Testament and He is talking about Himself in
the Scriptures. That's pretty much the purpose of the Bible. Jesus even said in John 5:39,
that you search the Scriptures, for in them you have eternal life; these are they which testify
of Me. The Old Testament is Christ concealed. The New Testament is Christ revealed. If you
don't see the Scripture as its main purpose is to point you to Jesus, reveal Jesus. You
will miss really about the Scriptures because you''ll be looking for yourself in each story,
instead of looking for Jesus. Looking at David and Goliath, like yeah, I'm David.
Goliath is my problem. Instead of looking, Jesus is like David and Goliath is my sin,
and so this has to change our perspective on the Bible reading. The Holy Spirit doesn't exalt us,
He exalts Jesus. And when you look into the Bible to find yourself, instead of find God, you're not
going to find a lot of truth that the Holy Spirit will highlight. Now if you find God, you find
yourself. Don't get me wrong. We find our identity in Him, by looking for Him, not for ourselves.
That's one of the biggest misconceptions and I believe one of the reasons why many people don't
get anything out of it is because they go looking for themselves, instead of going looking for God.
The second reason is people don't get anything out of reading the Bible because they don't read
it. Yes, pulling a Bible promise verse is fine if you also read the Bible. But just reading a verse
once in a while doesn't tell you enough of the story to really be helpful. Reinhard Bonnke said:
Reinhard Bonnke also said:
One of the reasons people use these excuses, "I don't want to read the Bible. It's boring.
I don't want to read the Bible. It's old." But if you don't read the Bible, you miss the
opportunity for the Bible to read you. You miss the opportunity to be fed by the Word of God and
to have the Holy Spirit speak to you. Jesus speaks in Matthew 12:3, He says, and He said to them,
"Have you not read what David did when he was hungry?" Did you catch the word "have you not
read." Other references where Jesus is asking about have you not read, are in Matthew 12:5,
Matthew 19:4, Matthew 21:16, and Matthew 21:42 and Matthew 22:31. Meaning God expects us to read His
Word. Many people just simply don't read, and we kind of get these you know popup verses from our
Bible app. You know this verse for the day, and that's good but that's like crumbs. You got to
get a loaf. You got to, you got to sit down and digest it and read it. By reading the Scriptures,
we breathe in what what God has breathed out. 2 Timothy 3:16. The Bible says that God's Word
is God breathed. God breathed into His Word. When you read it, you breathe in what God has
breathed out. The Bible is meant to be a bread for daily use, not cake for special occasions.
Charles Spurgeon said, and this is a good quote for those people who feel like, "Man, I've read
it already. I know what the Bible says. I need something new." And Charles Spurgeon said this:
Come on somebody. That means, every time you read it, it's different. It's kind of like
food. You don't say, well, I already ate an apple 5 years ago, so I don't want to eat an apple. I
had breakfast yesterday, so I don't want to eat breakfast anymore. Nobody says that about food.
So don't think of the Bible as a book. Think of the the Bible as spiritual food for your
spiritual person. Reading is the way you take in the Word of God, and if you don't read it,
you don't get anything out of it. Now the third reason why people don't get anything out of the
Bible is because they don't understand what they read. Matthew 13:19, Jesus speaks of the parable,
and He says that "When somebody hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it,
then the wicked comes in and snatches away what is sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by
the wayside." Now the simple explanation of this is you hear God's Word or you read God's Word,
you absolutely have no idea what it says. You don't understand it. Now there might be spiritual
blockages and we're going to mention that in just a moment. But sometimes it's the practical one,
and one of the practical ones is that people have a translation that they read they don't
understand. Now the best translation to read is the one that you will read and
apply. No translation is perfect because the New Testament was written in Greek,
and there are 5 million words in Greek and about 1 million words in English. I mean for
example, the word "love" in English, there's five words in Greek for the word "love." So
the translations are not going to be perfect but you're looking for something that you will
understand. Now when it comes to translation, there are two types of translations. There's
the devotional reading, the paraphrase of the devotional reading. Living Bible,
the Message, the Passion. Devotional reading can be thought for thought,
NIV and NLT. Some of the best translations also, NIV and NLT. That's for devotional reading. Then
there's the deeper study. That's the New King James. That's the NASB, ESV translations are
for deeper study. So if you are reading King James and you're a new believer and you're not
understanding anything. You might want to go to like NLT or NIV. So pick a translation that
you can understand because then you can really apply what you understand. Mark Batterson said:
See when you don't open the Bible to read it and your excuse is, "I don't understand it."
You're not going to hear God speak. Someone said that complaining about a silent God,
with a closed Bible, is like complaining that no text messages are coming in with a turned
off phone. Ouch. That means that you got to turn it on. You got to start reading. Read with the
translation you understand. Reading no Bible for seven days will make one weak. Weak as like
not 7-Day week, but weak meaning not strong. So why do I get nothing out of the Bible? Well one,
maybe you're looking for yourself there instead of God. Number two is are you
reading the Bible? Are you reading it with the translation you can understand? Now we'll
give right away a solution for that. People don't get anything out of the Bible because
they don't team up with the Holy Spirit to read the Bible. Now humans wrote the Bible
with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He is the ultimate Author and the Writer of the
Bible. Now Smith Wigglesworth said this:
Come on somebody. Smith Wigglesworth also said this:
In fact he is known to be the person who when people would come with the newspaper to his house,
he would not allow them to come in until they leave the newspaper out. He says, I don't want
this stuff in my house. He was radical about letting God's Word to be inside of his house
and inside of his life. Now when it comes to reading the Bible with the Holy Spirit, here's
some practical things that you can do. You must understand is the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible. He
is the Author of the Bible. The Holy Spirit moved upon men and women who prophesied, who declared
these utterances from God. So He is your best help to know the Scriptures. When you read the Bible,
invite the Holy Spirit. Prayerfully bow your head in prayer, say, "Holy Spirit help me, teach me,
bring to my remembrance, help me to understand, enlighten me, quicken this Word that it will speak
to me." You know put the distractions aside and then read the translations you can understand.
Read with a highlighter, read with a pen. If you can read a physical Bible, it's easier and better,
than reading sometimes on your phone, where there could be all kinds of notifications. And so if
you're reading on the phone as well, turn off the notifications so that they don't distract you,
and then without distraction, just read God's Word. Reread the same thing again. Don't just
try to get through the reading plan. Let the reading get inside of you, let the word get
inside of you. Pause and ponder. When it speaks to you, maybe write something in the journal,
ask the Lord, "What does this mean? How does this apply to me? Who is Jesus in this verse?" There's
a good way of reading the Scriptures that uses the word SOAP. "S" for Scripture. "O" for observation.
"A" for application and then "P" for prayer. If you want to engage with the Holy Spirit
while reading the Bible, read the Scripture, then observe what you've read. Ask yourself,
how does this apply to my life? What is God want me to do with this? And then pray about it. Before
you read, invite the Holy Spirit and He will help you to have revelation of the information
that you are consuming, that you are reading and it will bring spiritual transformation in
your life. The fifth reason why people don't get anything out of the Bible is because they don't
know how to study the Bible. So it's important to read the Scriptures, listen to the Scriptures. We
also have to learn to study the Scripture. Now we see that Paul tells Timothy to rightly divide the
word of truth. There are few things you have to understand about studying the Bible. There's the
exegesis and eisegesis. Now exegesis is drawing the meaning out of the text. Meaning you want the
text to impose the meaning to you. Eisegesis is you're imposing the meaning onto a text.
The meaning of the text that you are reading is always determined by the Author and it has to be
discovered by you. So think of this. It's like gold that is hidden in the ground. You have to
dig it out. You don't decide where it's laid. You discover it by developing it, by you know getting
the dirt out and by doing a little bit of work. So there's some practical things that you could
do with studying the Bible. Read the chapter before, read that chapter that you've read and
read the chapter after. Those things just will help you to kind of catch the meaning of what
these authors are speaking about. Read the theme of the book. There's so many good Bible studies
that give you a little like breakdown of when the book was written, why the book was written,
to whom the book was written, what challenges were they trying to resolve, which doctrines they were
trying to correct. Especially like Epistles. So it gives you like a little understanding,
and you have to honestly put their filter on your mind because if you're going as an American or as
a person, maybe a western person, or a person that's watching in your country going through
your own challenges and everything. Then there's nothing wrong with getting an application from the
Scripture, but you must understand, everything you read has one interpretation and many applications.
Before you get to the application part, you have to understand the interpretation of it. Meaning,
what is it saying? Why is it saying that? To whom is this author writing? And so all of
that could be helped with a little bit of work, both using some study Bibles, using some other
translations and reading some commentaries. While commentaries are good, study Bibles are good,
please understand, you want the Scripture to interpret the Scripture. As in Acts 17:11,
we learn that we need to rely on the Scripture to interpret the Scripture. The study guides,
the commentaries are supplements. The Scripture is the source, and we have to stick with the
Scripture. Scripture is written in such a way that a child can understand it. That's why even
children read Scripture and stuff. Of course more of an easy way to understand. So allow the Holy
Spirit to help you, do some digging. There's so many Bible apps now and Bible websites that you
can go in and actually click on the word of the text that you reading. And it could give you the
translation of the word, what that word means, how this word is being used in other parts of
the Scripture. And so do a little bit of work. Do not be lazy when it comes to studying the
Bible. Many people, they don't read the Bible, they don't invite the Holy Spirit. And then
they're just a little bit lazy when it comes to reading the Bible and then they're like,
"Well, I don't get anything out of it." Well if you don't put any effort into it,
if you don't do any diligence into it, then you're not going to get the gold and the preciousness of
what the Bible has for us. There is a spiritual blockage. We know that a demon is not behind every
bush but sometimes spiritual forces can hinder us. If you think there might be a spiritual blockage,
talk to your local pastor who does a demon deliverance or begin to resist you know
against the demonic spirits. Now I want to mention something. Maybe you are reading the Bible when
you are super exhausted and tired. Or maybe you're reading the Bible and you have a television on
and you are distracted. Like that's not a demon, that's a distraction. Turn off the TV, you know
maybe get a good night's rest. Or maybe you're more rested and awakened in the evening, read
during the time when you are most alert. Don't try to read it when you're most tired, though
I'm not against reading the Scripture before going to sleep and falling asleep with reading
the Scripture. I think it's also very good. It's way better than watching you know Television,
TV shows or scrolling through social media. So we have to do some practical parts before
we go in and blame everything on the devil. But I do believe that sometimes there's a spiritual
hindrance that exists for people to not study the Bible and read the Bible. Dwight Moody said:
Satan is interested in keeping you away from the Bible because
then he'll keep you in sin. Matthew 13:4. It says:
What does that mean? Means the devil really wants to get you out of God's Word. He wants
to steal God's word because if the Bible is not getting into you, the devil has already got into
your business. Ouch. And that's true. One of the first temptations the devil has given to humanity
in Genesis 3:1 is to doubt God's Word. The devil knows, he can't defeat you unless he disarms you,
and he can't disarm you unless you doubt God's Word. The devil wants you to doubt God's Word
or not to divide God's Word rightly. For example, you look at Jesus's temptation,
and you see that when Jesus fought back the devil's temptation with the Scripture,
the devil came back using the Scripture. Well actually, abusing the Scripture, pulling the
Scripture out of context. And so I do see these two big temptations when it comes to the devil
being involved in pulling Christians away from the Bible. And that is causing them to doubt it,
and then to cause them to not divide the Word of God rightly. When we begin to take Scripture out
of context, and so many on fire Christians do that with the Bible, and they fall into the trap of the
enemy because the devil did that. Now some do it out of ignorance. Some do it out of impatience.
Some do it out of laziness and some do it out of totally just being blinded by the enemy. And they
keep saying things like, God told me, God told me, and it contradicts the Bible. It's not in the
Scripture. We have to be "it is written people." We have to be people that live by the Bible,
live by the book and led by the Holy Spirit. If you're experiencing demonic attacks and you're
noticing you're absolutely just not able to read the Bible, constantly fall asleep. And
you can watch television, you can scroll through the social media and you're alert,
you're awake. But when it comes to the Bible, you're just like snoozing and always falling
asleep. Ask for prayer, ask for people to pray for you to break things off of you. You know maybe you
have unconfessed sin that you need to repent in your life that is spiritually blocking your
sensitivity and your hunger for God. And a lot of times that's the case is there's some open doors
that we left that are opening doors to spiritual deadness, where we spiritually just kind of like
absolutely feel no hunger for the Word of God. Repent of those sins, forsake those ways, ask
somebody to minister to you and pray for you. And then look at these tips that I given you today,
like reading the Bible, like looking for the Jesus in the Bible, like reading the translation you
understand, like asking the Holy Spirit to help you, like doing a little bit more of diligence to
understand the Scripture by diligent study of the Scripture. And then resisting the doubt and the
lies of the enemy, and resisting the pull of the enemy to also take the Scripture out of context
because that is the enemy's trap. Because then we can build doctrines based on our experiences,
we can build doctrines based on, "Well, this is what I think about it." You know but it's
not actually true because we're not rightly dividing the Word of God. And so we have to
do a due diligence that we present God's Word in the way that God's Word needs to be presented and
then the Holy Spirit will back it up. Thank you so much for watching this video. Let me
know in the comments below, what are some things you are doing as your personal habit
to get more out of the Scripture? Share your thoughts, experiences with us below this video.