learning to see and savor the glory of Christ.

I’ve been reading John MacArthur’s short booklet, “Found: God’s Will”. I came across a helpful chapter on living the Spirit filled life. In this little excerpt, he writes of being saturated with the things of Christ, with His word and Person, by studying the book that discloses who He is. As Christians, we always say that we struggle with knowing God, intimacy with Him, obeying Him, or even thinking about Him daily, but we neglect the Word that God has breathed out for us know, treasure, and obey Him by. One common reason we give as an excuse for neglecting the Word (I should know, I’m guilty of this too!), is that we stop reading the Bible consistently because we don’t really get anything out of it, or because it’s too hard to understand. MacArthur gives a helpful response, and it’s helped me to see that a lot of my struggle with the Word, knowing and understanding it, is that I don’t spend time in it. We say “I tried reading the bible, but I didn’t get anything.” This is his response:

Let me share how I study the Bible, and how the Bible has come alive to me. I began in 1 John. One day, I sat down and read all five chapters straight through. It took me 20 minutes. Reading one book straight through was terrific. (The books of the Bible weren’t written as an assortment of good little individual verses. They were written with flow and context.

The next day, I sat down and read 1 John straight through again. The third day, I sat down and read 1 John straight through. The fourth day, straight through again. I did this for 30 days. Do you know what happened at the end of 30 days? I knew what was in 1 John.

Someone says to you, “Where in the bible does it talk about confessing our sins?” You see a mental image of 1 John, first chapter, right-hand column, half-way down (depending on your Bible). “Where does it say to love not the world?” Second chapter, right-hand column, half-way down. Where does it talk about sin unto death? Chapter 5, last page. You know 1 John!

…You might say, “My, are you smart!” No, I am not smart. I read it 30 times. Even I can get it then! Isaiah said to learn “precept upon precept, line upon line,… here a little, and there a little”(see Isa. 28:10-13). Then you have hidden it in your heart. After a while you are no longer a concordance cripple!

The more you study the Word of God, the more it saturates your mind and life. Someone is reported to have asked a concert violinist in New York’s Carnegie Hall how she became so skilled. She said that it was by “planned neglect.” She planned to neglect everything that was not related to her goal.

Some less important things in your life could stand some planned neglect so that you might give yourself to studying the Word of God. Do you know what would happen? The more you would study the Word of God, the more your minds would be saturated with it. It will be no problem then for you to think of Christ. You won’t be able to stop thinking of Him.

Brothers and sisters, let’s not take for granted and neglect the living and active Word of God, that is sharper than any double-edged sword, that penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; that judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12)! It pains me that I can go through the entire day without spending time in the Word of God, my Maker and Redeemer. If we love God, by His Spirit we ought to and need to love His Word too! Emotionally, we will not always be excited by the Word, but we can’t rely on our emotions to gauge the glory of God revealed in it. He never changes, and His glory will not diminish according to our feelings. Also, our flesh in itself will never desire the things of God. We need to trust in His promises, not our flesh, throw off the sin that blinds us from His glory, and put on Christ, digging deep into His precious Word. Dig in!