My daughter tried to coax my young granddaughter to introduce herself to other children. She taught her how to look kids in the eye, smile, and tell them her name. So far, though, my granddaughter had been unresponsive to my daughter’s urgings.
One day my daughter took her little girl to the park, and something changed. Without any prompting, my granddaughter approached two other children, asked them their names, introduced herself, and invited them to play.
Of course, as children do, they became instant friends.
That’s how it is with family.
As parents, we teach our children how to live and how to get along with people because we want the best for them. We want them to grow up to be mature, happy, friendly, and kind. And even when it doesn’t seem like they’re “getting it,” we keep teaching, hoping they’ll internalize our instructions and one day decide to act on them.
In much the same way, I’ve learned—often the hard way—that “it always goes well with us when we obey all the laws of the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 6:25).
God—through the work of the Holy Spirit— never stops teaching, urging, convicting, and encouraging us. And He uses the Scriptures to do it. That’s why reading the Bible can change your life.
HOW READING THE BIBLE CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
God has given us the Scriptures. The pages of our Bibles are a gift to us, and when we respond to them, we find a life that’s richer and fuller than we imagined it could be.
Through the Scriptures, God shows us who we really are. We can easily deceive other people, and sometimes we even deceive ourselves. In fact, the Bible says “the heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, HCSB).
But the truth is, we can never fool God. He knows us, inside and out. “Lord, You have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know what I am going to say before I even say it” (Psalm 139:1,4, TLB).
God reveals our real selves in the pages of our Bibles. “For whatever God says to us is full of living power: it is sharper than the sharpest dagger, cutting swift and deep into our innermost thoughts and desires with all their parts, exposing us for what we really are. (Hebrews 4:12, TLB). Then He teaches us how to change.
As God teaches us about ourselves, He also reveals Himself to us. The more we know Him, the more we love Him. And the more we love Him, the more we want to live for Him.
When we live for the Lord, our lives become more joyful, purposeful, and abundant.
My granddaughter had the time of her life on that playground with her new friends because she responded to what my daughter had taught her to do.
I want to be like that.
I want a heart that says, “Help me understand Your instruction, and I will obey it and follow it with all my heart” (Psalm 119:34).
WHY THE BIBLE?
The Bible is alive.
For the word of God is living… Hebrews 4:12
It’s filled with the inspired words of God. And as we obey them, those words change us. Not because we become better versions of ourselves, but because we’re following Jesus. And when we follow Him, we begin to reflect Him.
The whole Bible was given to us by inspiration from God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives; it straightens us out and helps us do what is right.2 Timothy 3:16, TLB
Reading the Bible and taking it to heart—obeying what it says—will change your life. All we have to do is make time for it. Then, as we read the Scriptures and meditate on them, we can choose to obey what we read, even if it’s just one verse at a time.
There’s nothing in all the world like the Scriptures. They feed us, fill us, comfort us, guide us, convict us, encourage us, and delight us, above other things. When we obey them, we can say, “Hallelujah! Happy is the man who fears the Lord, taking great delight in His commands” (Psalm 112:1, HCSB).
BIBLE VERSES THAT ENCOURAGE US TO OBEY
You can find out how much you love God’s children—your brothers and sisters in the Lord—by how much you love and obey God. 1 John 5:2
But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29
Your laws are wonderful; no wonder I obey them. Psalm 119:129
And how can we be sure that we belong to Him? By looking within ourselves: are we really trying to do what he wants us to? 1 John 2:3
Someone may say, “I am a Christian; I am on my way to heaven; I belong to Christ.” But if he doesn’t do what Christ tells him to, he is a liar. 1 John 2:4
(All verses are from The Living Bible translation)
