Seven ways to intake the Bible. According to American Bible Society 78%
of American households own a Bible. An average household, the average household has
three Bibles but only 11% of Christians have read the entire Bible and the majority of 30%
of Americans surveyed that they have read no more than several passages and stories. We have such a
deficit and famine in the land. The famine, I'm not speaking of food, I'm speaking of the Bible.
Now not that we don't have Bible that's available. We just have the Bible that people don't read.
People don't take the word of God inside of them. It's like chef dying out of hunger. It's terrible.
The benefits of being in God's Word are amazing. I mean the Bible gives us a lot of those benefits
and I have another video of five benefits of being in God's Word and symbols of God's Word,
what it will do to you. But I'm going to read to you a statistic. A key discovery from
CBE research is that the life of somebody who engages scripture four or more times a week looks
radically different from the life of someone who does not. In fact the lives of Christians
who do not engage the Bible most days of the week are statistically the same as the lives
of non-believers. That's crazy. So the only difference, really the key to see change in
your life versus the life of other people who are not following Jesus Christ. It's not just church
attendance, it's being in the Word of God most of your week. Maybe you can't do it every single day
but at least five times a week, four times a week being in God's Word. Otherwise your life will be
the same, that's what statistics says. This same research found out that somebody who engages the
Bible four or more times a week is 228% more likely to share their faith with others. 407%
more likely to memorize scriptures. 59% less likely to view pornography and 30% less likely
to struggle with loneliness. Now what do you do with the Bible? How do you intake the bible?
Number one. Read it. in fact even Jesus in Matthew 19:4 He asked this question. He says, "Haven't you
read?" And He's talking about the scriptures. Read it. The Bible says in Matthew 4:4 that, "Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Why should you
read it? Because in 2 Timothy chapter 3:16 it says that," All scripture is God breathe." Meaning God
breathe into the scriptures. If you remember when God made Adam out of dust, out of dirt but then he
breathed into Adam and Adam became a living soul. If you want to be living, if you want to be alive,
if you want to be fruitful, if you want to be on fire for God you have to read the Word. because as
you're reading you are inhaling what God exhaled. His breath. Wow. That's incredible. The breath
of God is in the scriptures. You will inhale the breath of God. That's amazing. Number two.
The second thing that you can do with the Bible is listen to it. Romans chapter 10:17 it says,
Maybe you are not able to read it all the time, listen to it. Get an audio Bible. Most of the
Bible apps have an audio version for it, for free. On the background as you're working out, as you
are doing house chores, as you are driving or you are taking a bus to work, listen to the Bible. You
may say but I'm not as focused as I am reading. And still let the Word of God come through your
ears not just through your eyes. Number three, study it. In 2 Timothy chapter 2:15 Paul says:
So studying the Word of God. Jesus says in John 5:39 : So Paul is telling Timothy. He says I want
you to be a worker. That means that this deals with more than just merely devotional reading.
This is talking about studying the scriptures. This is talking about rightly dividing,
meaning you exege properly. Instead of eisegesis where you are imposing your meaning unto a text.
You practice exegesis meaning you're allowing the text to reveal its meaning to you. You're
using commentaries. You're using different translations. You're reading the whole passage,
a chapter before and chapter after. You don't jump into conclusions. You're working on that.
And the Bible calls Timothy to be a worker, meaning you got to work that Word brother,
sister. You got to work that word. Come on somebody drop that in a comment. You got to work
that Word. See that's what studying the Bible is. Or sometimes you just need to get a study Bible.
As you're reading your devotionals you can see the little comments by other people. People who you
know know the Greek or know Hebrew or who are way more educated in this area and they can help you
to understand a little bit more. The idea is that it deals with more than just merely reading. It
talks about like working the Word, going into the Word and studying the Word and learning what it
means in original language. Learning the meaning of the author. What he meant and discovering that,
instead of imposing what you want the author to mean. Number four is confess it. Jesus did that
during His temptation. He spoke the Word. Matthew 4:4, Joshua 1:8. It talks about don't let the book
of the Law depart from your mouth. Meaning confess it, speak it. Something happens when you speak
God's Word is that it actually could redirect your thoughts. It could change your mood. Sometimes you
have a thought battle where thoughts are kind of bombarding your mind and so, so many people are
trying to fight bad thoughts with good thoughts. It doesn't work. If you want to fight bad thoughts
you got to fight them with the Word of God. And the best way to do that is to speak God's Word,
exactly, just like that. A bad thought comes. You just speak it. You speak the opposite,
what the Word of God teaches. I'm not talking about name and claim it, blab and grab it,
confess it and possess it. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about using God's Word
as a sword. Using God's Word as a weapon against the fiery darts of the enemy but to do that you
have to know God's Word. You have to know what it means and you have to study it. Number five.
Meditate on God's Word. The Bible tells us in Joshua 1:8 is that don't let the book of the
Lord depart from your mouth; but meditate in it day and night. It also talks about in Psalm 1:1
about the blessed man who doesn't stand doesn't sit and doesn't walk and then in verse 2 it says,
"He meditates in the law of the LORD. He delights in the law of the LORD." In verse 3 he talks about
he will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, and his leaves they will not wither and
whatever he does he will prosper. He will bear fruit in his season. What is this? It's the guy
who's meditating. Now eastern meditation or yoga, new age, yoga meditation is different from the
Bible meditation. All of the eastern meditation is about emptying your mind, the Biblical meditation
is about filling your mind. Demonic meditation is all about being passive, just relax. Biblical
meditation is aggressive. You actually are imposing the Word of God on your thoughts.
You're not just trying to chill, you're actually going into a conquest and eastern meditation is
actually a gateway to demons. But biblical meditation provides a visitation of the Holy
Ghost. Come on somebody. And so because when you meditate you go and you become at home with the
Father, with the Son and with the Spirit. You are living in this presence through the scriptures.
Number six is you can memorize the Bible. in Psalm 119:11 it says, "Your word I have hid
in my heart, that I will not sin against you." So memorizing. Like how did Jesus quote the Bible
in the wilderness? I'm pretty sure He didn't have scriptures with Him but He had it in
Him. Yes He was the Word but He also as a Jewish boy and man He memorized the scriptures. And so
you have to practice memorizing the scriptures. Instead of trying to go on this social media
protest, you know I'm gonna turn off the social media and I'm gonna completely isolate myself from
the online. You know I want to encourage you try a better way because Christianity is not always
about removing bad stuff. It's about replacing them with good things. You know even the idea of
repentance. It's not about stop what you're doing, that's bad. No. Realize what you're doing is wrong
and make a u-turn. Meaning do the opposite. If you're running from God, run to God. So the same
thing applies to media. I would encourage you install a Bible app. One of my favorite ones is
Bible memory but there's other ones. Or maybe just write verses down and then review them every other
day or every day before you go to sleep or you when you wake up. Or when you have a free minute
instead of just going to a snapchat, tiktok or instagram or even youtub.eTthat you take
few minutes every day during your free time and that you bench on verses and you put them into
your heart. Trust me you will need it. There will be moments, you're gonna have to pull that weapon
and shoot right at the devil. And if you don't have, and you don't know how to use it my friend,
you may be unprepared for the spiritual warfare. Number seven. And it's the most important one,
and it's to obey it. You know all the reading, all the listening, all the memorizing, all the study,
all the meditating and all the speaking will avail to nothing if we don't actually obey it. In fact
when I read, when I was trying to find verses for all of these things that I'm sharing with you,
like in the teachings of Jesus. I found almost no verses of Jesus specifically and clearly telling
His disciples to read the Torah or to memorize the Torah. Like the verses that I've used are just
honestly it's implied in those verses but it's not directly. You know what Jesus constantly talked
about, is actually obeying the Bible. Remember the parable about you know building on the rock
and building on the sand? What is that parable all about? He didn't say, oh anybody who doesn't
read the Word. He says, "Anybody who doesn't obey it is like a man." Meaning you read it,
you listen to it, you understood it but you just didn't do anything about it. Jesus kept talking
about that. "If you love me, obey my teachings." He didn't say, if you love me read my teachings.
Please understand this whole video was about reading, studying and memorizing and I'm all for
that. But it's a means to a goal. You know what that goal is? It's to obey. So instead of focusing
on the scriptures you don't understand, why don't you obey the ones you do. Obeying the Bible
is the most important. Obeying what you understand is the most important. That's what the power is
.James says in James 1:22 he says, if you are just listening, if you're just reading. I'm
paraphrasing. But you don't obey it you're like a man that's gonna go in front of a mirror and
you saw that, oh man my hair is not looking good and you left and you did nothing about
it. So pretty much when you go to the mirror you don't just let the mirror fix you. You let
the mirror expose things so that you can then do something about it. The Word of God is the mirror,
so that we can obey God's Word. We can obey what it tells us to do. In Matthew 28:19-20
Jesus tells us that go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them and then He says,
"Teach them to obey." I love this. He doesn't say teach them to read, teach them to memorize. I'm
all for reading. I'm all for memorizing. I'm all for listening to the Bible. I'm all for,
I have so many Bibles in my house now. I have very expensive Bible software, a lot of them. I buy so
much Christian books but honestly, ultimately that's not the point. The point is to obey.
Joshua 1:8 it says, "Meditate on it day and night. Don't let it depart from your mouth,
that you may do according to all that is written in it and then you will make your way successful,
then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success." So the whole
point is obedience to God's Word. So please don't study so deep that you don't obey it.
You study so much about love, you know five words in Greek about love but you actually don't love.
Yes you might know every commentary about this particular verse but are you living it? Are you
evangelizing?Aare you winning the lost? Are you praying for the sick? Are you driving out demons?
Are you loving your neighbors? Are you taking care of your household? Are you loving other believers?
That's the whole point of the Bible. I have this funny illustration that I use. Imagine my wife
going to the store and telling me to feed my dog. Now I have a dog. His name is Jaco and imagine my
wife is saying, Vlad feed Jacko at 6 pm. Now she's gone, let's say she comes back two hours later
and she asks me did you feed Jacko. And I will say no, I know what you said. I memorized it,
in fact I even got a translator and I translated it into Spanish, I translated it into Russian. I
even have a Greek translation of did you feed or feed Jacko at 6 pm. She would say well
did you feed it? Did you feed him? And I would say, well I actually have a Bible study group,
like we met on zoom and we discussed like what would it look like to feed Jacko. We
even developed a plan of feeding Jacko. She was like, wow, that's incredible but did you actually
feed him? No but I memorized what you said. You see like, she will look at me and she's
like so why did you memorize what I said but you actually didn't feed him? And
this story illustration, may it remind each one of us including myself that all the studying
will fail if we don't apply it. God bless you as you study, as you obey and you follow God's Word.
Hey thank you for watching this video. If this was a blessing to you let me know in the comments
below what stood out to you the most. Maybe the Holy Spirit used it to convict your life.
Let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to hit thumbs up and subscribe if you are watching
and you have not subscribed to this channel. Share this with your friends as well. I want to
remind you that this ministry exists to bring the good news of Jesus Christ in the teaching format
in video and audio, in written content as well as in blogs and e-courses free of charge
to the world. It's all because of partners and supporters like you. So if you want to support
and be a blessing so that we can do more of this and we're translating this even into Spanish,
Russian and other languages, we have other youtubes as well in other languages. Hey this is
a good soil to sow so that we can reap a harvest of souls coming to Jesus Christ. Thank you.
you