Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
For years I struggled, at times, with reading my Bible, not because I didn't want to read my Bible, not because I didn't really love reading my Bible, but because when I was going through a hard time, I would inevitably get asked the question, "Well, are you reading your Bible?" That question just always made me a little bit frustrated. Not because I wasn't reading my Bible and I couldn't deal with the conviction and the upfront question. The problem was, I was reading my Bible and it wasn't helping me in my situation. I would read it and read it and go, I have no idea what this means, and I have no idea how this is going to make anything better in my life.
The Secret Is Hidden Here
Thankfully that's changed over time, and one of the verses that helped me a lot in this is our Verse of the Day, and it comes from Second Peter chapter 1, verse 2. The Apostle Peter writes, "May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God in Jesus our Lord."
Here's the truth. You can read the Bible and not experience any change. You can open up God's perfect Word, and you can sit here and read the words over and over and not be moved. In truth, all the pages can fall on deaf ears. I've met more atheists who have read this thing cover to cover than I've met Christians who have read this thing cover to cover. Yet those same nonbelievers who've read all of the words of God who remain unchanged can be compared to the believer who can find so much endless hope and just holding on to one verse.
How could that be? How could God's Word be received so differently? The secret is hidden here, in Peter's greeting to the church. He says, "May God give you more and more grace and peace as you"—not read your Bible more, go to church more, serve more, pray more—he says, "as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord."
Know God, Not Just Information
See, this verse changed everything for me because I stopped asking myself and others the question, "How often are you reading your Bible?" And I shifted that to the question, "What are you learning about God right now? How are you deepening in your understanding of who Jesus is?" That's the point of the Bible. This isn't a book of information. This is a pathway to transformation—to uncover who Jesus is, to see how His Spirit wants to move in you, to make you more like Him.
Yes, we should be reading our Bible, but we could read this all day long. If we're not growing in our knowledge and understanding of Jesus, it's not going to do anything for us. Yes, we need to be in church. We need to be getting outside of our comfort zone and serving others. We need to enter into worship. We need to be praying with others. We need to be looking at God's Word daily. But the point of all of it, the goal, is to see God more clearly.
Open Up His Word
I would invite you into what I'm trying to do, even still today, to look at my Bible from new perspectives, new vantage points, to open up His Word and go, God, what do You want to teach me about You today? Because that has radically changed the way that I approach His Word. If you want to grow in His grace, and if you want to experience more of His peace, and I've never met anybody who wouldn't want either one of those things, this is what we need to understand: that it comes from knowing God and Jesus more closely.
As we do that, as we enter into His presence, it's there that we will experience more of His grace and His peace in and through our lives.
