Before we dive into the core of this topic, I will take a small detour, and I believe the Holy Spirit will make it all make sense at the end, so please keep reading. Thanks!
As the legalistic Christian that I was, I used to use the Bible as a powerful instrument, but for the wrong purpose. I used it to point fingers at my haters, doubters, and naysayers, and to show how terrible they were. But I never allowed the Bible to read me. I used to read the Bible in my own strength, so I didn’t realize that I’ve been missing out on its amazing transformative power.
One thing to consider is that many of us need to get back to the way we used to approach the Bible. We used to pray before we read it. Some think that praying before reading the Bible is something we do only on Sundays during Church service. The truth is, we are supposed to do so each time we open the Bible. We need to get into the habit of asking the Holy Spirit for His assistance before we read the Bible. The prayer doesn’t need to be long or loud; it can be silent, precise, short, and simple. Reading the Bible without praying is a form of arrogance. It’s saying to the Holy Spirit that His assistance is no longer needed because we got it like that. So, whenever we forget to pray before reading the Bible, we just need to stop reading, ask God for forgiveness, then ask for His assistance, and continue reading.
Another thing to consider is that when Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, He also said, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). I believe Jesus was intentional in using the word “bread.” It would be unwise to think that Jesus was only talking about the bread we eat because it was the same Jesus who told His disciples in John 4:32, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” This also confirms why Jesus said what He said in Matthew 4: 3-4 when the tempter came to Him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread”, and Jesus answered, “It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Therefore, we have to keep in mind that when Jesus said, “Give us this day our daily bread,” He was probably referring to daily spiritual bread as well. At times, Jesus used words like dough, yeast, and bread in His parables. For example, when He said, “A little yeast will leaven the whole dough” or “Stay away from the yeast of the Pharisee”, we know that Jesus was not talking about the bread we eat in these instances.
Another great example is in John 6:35, when Jesus declared that He is the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to Him will never go hungry, and whoever believes in Him will never be thirsty. We definitely know that He is talking about another type of bread, not the one we eat. However, the most important question is, where do we go to get that delicious spiritual bread Jesus is talking about, and how can we be sure to get it daily? According to Jesus, that bread is so vital that we can run out of physical bread and still make it, but we cannot afford to run low on that spiritual bread. It is our spiritual nourishment, our daily supply. It is important because we are sustained by it.
This also means that we cannot read the Bible only on Sunday mornings during Church service and expect to have enough bread in our tummies for the rest of the week. We must know the Bible for ourselves. God said in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.”
However, I must emphasize to you that Jesus Himself is the “Bread of Life”. It is a metaphor that Jesus uses to refer to Himself as our spiritual sustenance. Therefore, we open the Bible to read about Him or to digest the Bread of Life.
I also say this to say that when we hold a physical Bible in our hands, that Bible doesn’t replace the Holy Spirit, nor does it replace prayer. One may choose to read the Bible during his prayer time, for what better time is there to read the Word than after being soaked in God’s presence? However, the time one kneels before the Lord to pray is not the time to try to read, memorize, find the meaning of a text, or do other spiritual things, because these things do not replace our conversation with God. To make it clearer, let me give you an illustration, again, it is just an example because not everybody has or needs to spend the same amount of time in prayer. So, let’s say I dedicate two hours to prayer. The first half hour can be about Thanksgiving, adoration, petition, etc., and the next half hour is for me to stand, sit, or lie prostrate before the Lord in silence. After that, I can use the last hour to study or read the Word. However, the time I lie prostrate before the Lord is not the time to try to memorize a verse or figure out the meaning of a Biblical text. Hopefully, that makes sense.
We must never forget that we need the Holy Spirit to read the Word of God. If we approach the Word with arrogance or if our hearts are not in the right place, we will not reap its benefits, even if we read and memorize it all day long. I know people who read and preach the Word regularly, yet they have not allowed transformation to take place in their lives. And who can transform someone other than the Holy Spirit? It is the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth (John 16:13). It is He who helps us read the Bible with fresh eyes.
Let me give you another example: let’s say a member who is now active in the Church was raped by her biological father in her teenage years. She was baptized several years ago and reads her Bible regularly. Nonetheless, she never healed from her past trauma and is still bitter toward her father. None of us should judge her for the way she feels, especially if we have not walked a mile in her shoes. Being a victim of rape can lead to justified anger. And if God is just, then He should allow the victim to be angry and take revenge the way she wants because she deserves to be vindicated for what happened to her. Otherwise, this can cause her to question or even doubt God’s justice and righteousness.
Certainly, when she opens the Bible with all her unresolved emotions, she sees her perpetrator through every line. And she will automatically think that every word of correction belongs to the perpetrator, not her; after all, she didn’t do anything wrong. Therefore, she doesn’t think she needs help. However, reading the Bible with fresh eyes, meaning through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, will make her see her situation differently. Thus, words like forgiveness, love, forbearance, kindness, and unity will begin to make sense.
She will begin to understand that God asking her to forgive doesn’t mean that God won’t vindicate her or deal with her father. He will correct him. He might do it differently than she expects, but He will.
I have learned that once we leave our situations under God’s care, He will not only take care of them but also repay us for the damage others have caused us. God sees beyond what happened to us. Yes, what they’ve done was indeed horrible. But because He is righteous, He cannot pretend that He doesn’t know the main reason behind it all. He knows all the contributing factors to the cause and wants to solve it at the root. It is possible that the perpetrator did what he did because he himself had a horrible thing that happened to him. So instead of forgiving the person who wronged him, he decided to pay evil for evil.
Had he followed God’s counsel and allowed the Holy Spirit to help him read the Word with fresh eyes, he would have seen his situation the way God sees it; he would have obeyed God’s command by forgiving the person who wronged him. Thus, this would have been the end of the cycle.
You see, God’s word is deeper than it appears. We do not read the Bible just because there is a Big God upstairs who asks us to do uncomfortable things, and if we don’t, He will punish us. God asks us to obey His Word for our own well-being. When we do not allow the Holy Spirit to help us read God’s Word with fresh eyes, we become frustrated in life. His Word is there to protect us and cannot be nullified, no matter how unfamiliar and uncomfortable it may seem. Jesus says in Matthew 21:44, “Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
Unfortunately, sometimes we experience people’s brokenness because of their own unprocessed pain and anger. That’s why God’s Word tells us that our battles are not ours, but the Lord’s. God takes it upon Himself to deal with them and repays us for all the wrongs we suffer in this broken world.
Let us remember that God is God. He is not the supervisor at work, the president of a country, or an earthly king. He is the Creator God Almighty. If God said it, best believe it, He will do it.
SCRIPTURES
“Who then can stand against Me? Who has a claim against Me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to Me.” Job 41:10-11
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 14:26
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