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Continuing a series of posts on how how to approach Bible reading. Be sure to check out Part 1 also.

2. Your Bible reading is not for God’s benefit or appeasement.

Undoubtedly, this has already happened. You set your appointment with Jesus to read the Scriptures, only to hit the snooze button one too many times. Now, you must hustle just to make it to work on time, get the kids dropped off, etc. You resolve to make it up the next day or on the next Grace Day, but that rolls around and the same thing happens.

At some point, the guilt of missing so many days becomes so great that in obligation, you begrudgingly sit down, open your Bible and begin to plow through the missed reading while you daydream about getting a root canal…which oddly enough, seems more appealing at the time.

No wonder we often give up trying to read the Bible! If we think we owe it to God to read the Bible, then we are approaching the Bible all wrong. If we think we earn some more of God’s good graces by keeping a consistent quiet time and subsequently receive His wrath for missing quiet times, we’re missing the point.

The Bible is given to us as a meal to feast on, not a project to complete before Judgment Day. You and I live under grace…grace given to us by Jesus and Him alone, not by our quiet times and holy living. Missing a quiet time could never compromise God’s love and grace for you just the same as having a super extended quiet time cannot earn you more merit in God’s kingdom. Our hope is Jesus, not ourselves. Our confidence is in His finished work, not our work still progress.

When you miss a meal you get hungry. But you don’t stop eating. You long for a meal and when it comes, you are grateful and you chow down with great delight. Approach the Bible the same way. If you miss a meal, don’t stop. Approach the Bible hungry to see the glory, grace, and gifts of God in every text and on every page.

As one writer has said:

“In the same way that skipping breakfast is more of a missed opportunity than a morally dubious choice; not going to the scriptures for nourishment is not a matter of calling down the anger of God, but of omitting to take advantage of his good gifts to his children.”

It’s not for God’s benefit that we read the Scriptures. By His grace, it’s for our benefit and delight. Come hungry!

As we press on through week two of New Thru 30, I want to share a few thoughts to help you approach the Bible and your time reading God’s Word with the right perspective.

It’s important that we understand that the Bible is not primarily a moral guidebook. The Bible is not a collection of random stories stitched together to form a nice story book. The Bible is ONE story…God’s Story. And God’s Story is simply the greatest story ever told.

Here is the first of three principles to keep in mind as you read:

1. The Bible is not about you; it’s about Jesus.

Have you ever felt like your Bible reading was not working? You know…you read what you were supposed to that day, but when you came home from work, you still kicked the cat and snapped at your kids. Then we wonder what happened.

Most of us approach the Scriptures looking for practical insights on how to live better, how to behave, how to get our kids to behave, how to…well, fill in the blank with anything. We expect to walk away with a list of points to apply to make our lives better or a list of things to fix in our lives because God called us out.

While certainly the Bible does offer us help in honoring God with our lives, it is not primarily a moral guidebook. To view it as only a moral guidebook will leave us incredibly frustrated for two reasons:

• The Bible is not always obviously helpful. Admit it…you read Matthew 1 (the geneology of Jesus) and wondered, “Why the heck is that in the Bible? I have no idea what to do with that.” You have to read 11 chapters of Romans before you get to a single application command or imperative. And don’t even get started on the Old Testament, right?! All the twists and turns, long lists of names and places, etc. If the Bible is just a moral guidebook, we fly right past the confusing or hard stuff or we twist and manipulate it. In our attempt to “do something,” we miss the meaning of the Scriptures.
• No one could possibly uphold the moral standard presented in the Scriptures. Forget all the rest of it, let’s just start with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20). How you doing on those? Or, check out Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). How’s that going for you? If the Bible is a moral guidebook, it becomes a crushing and impossible moral burden to bear.

Much more than a moral guidebook, the Bible is God’s Story of redemption and rescue through Jesus. The Bible is not a book given to dole-out moral lessons, but to teach us about Jesus so that we might delight all the more in Him.

If you’re frustrated in your Bible reading, it’s time to read differently. Stop thinking that the Bible is about you by looking for moral insights and start approaching the Bible looking for God’s redemption through Jesus in every text.

God wants us to live holy lives. But it’s possible only because of His grace towards us in and through Jesus. The Bible is about Jesus, not us.

NOTE: due to an error, this post did not post at its scheduled time, which was Wednesday morning. I apologize.

By far, the most popular question we’ve received from the first 2 days of reading (Matthew 1-12 & 13-23) is “Why did Jesus warn people not to share what He had done for them?” It is a bit confusing at first because after all, isn’t that why we’re here and didn’t Jesus command us to take the gospel to the nations (Matthew 28-19-20; Acts 1:8)?

Yes, Jesus did command us to take the gospel to the nations, but that was after His rescue mission was complete. Sin’s price had been paid and He had conquered death, hell, and Satan by rising from the dead. Prior to the crucifixion and resurrection, there were several instances in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus sternly warns people not to share that He is the Messiah or what He has done for them.

In Matthew 8:4, Jesus heals a man with leprosy and says to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone…” In Matthew 9:30, after giving sight to two blind men, Jesus “sternly warned them, ‘See that no one knows about it.’” In Matthew 12:16, after healing many people of many diseases, Jesus “ordered them not to make him known.” In Matthew 16:20, after the disciples confess Him as the Christ (Messiah), Jesus “strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.” Finally, in Matthew 17:9, after Peter, James, and John witnessed the Transfiguration, Jesus commanded them,”‘Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.’”

There are several reasons why Jesus would have made these commands and warnings:

In the case of the leper, Jesus called the man to show himself to the priests in accordance with Levitical law  (Leviticus 14) and to let their testimony confirm the man’s complete healing of leprosy. The man’s testimony may have been disputed, but the priestly testimony would not be.

Jesus didn’t come to be a rockstar; He came as Messiah, our Rescuer. Yes, His miracles were done in public and were meant to reveal His divine power and support His claim as Messiah. But, many came to see Him only as a healer and miracle worker and were unwilling to follow those signs to see Him as Messiah. They wanted to see the magic show and get a free meal, not accept Jesus as their Messiah. So, Jesus wanted to fend off as much of this crowd as possible.

Jesus was also aware that the repeated miracles and demonstrations of His divine power could attract a following that would try to raise Him up as a great political and/or military leader. This was the historical expectation many Jews had of the Messiah and of course, nothing about Jesus’ birth, family, life, and public ministry lined up with this thinking. Jesus did not want people to become fanatical about Him and attempt to raise Him up as the political or military leader they expected Messiah to be. Also, Jesus did not want to prematurely incite the religious establishment that would then come after Him and have Him killed for His claims to be Messiah. This was, after all, why Jesus was killed – He claimed to be the King of the Jews, yet the Jews did not receive Him. The timing of it all had to be according to the Father’s plan.

In all of these, there is a bottom line reason why Jesus would warn people as He did: “Perhaps the most important reason Jesus did not want His miracle power to be too highly acclaimed was that this was not the time of His exaltation but of His humiliation” (John MacArthur). Jesus’ life was one of astounding humility (Phil. 2:5-12). His death was worse than that of the worst criminal. And all of it was so that His resurrection would be that much more a demonstration of His power and Messiahship. The miracles were mere previews of what was to come. Before He would be exalted, He would be deeply humiliated.

Jesus didn’t come to be exalted as a miracle worker who cured people’s physical needs. He came to be exalted as the Resurrected Messiah who cured people’s deepest spiritual need.

Hope that helps.

Yesterday, we launched what could be one of the most challenging and rewarding seasons of our lives and in the young life of Awaken Church.

Let’s face it…we know we should read the Bible, we know we need to read the Bible, and we want to read the Bible. So every year we commit to try harder, read it cover to cover, read a little everyday…and it goes well for about a month. We get confused by something we read, the Old Testament makes us sleepy, and we get frustrated because we miss a few days of reading. We give up and wait until next year to try again.

But this year is different.

Awaken Church is committed to engaging God by hitting the Bible head-on. It’s a new year, so we’re reading the New Testament. And we’re doing it in 30 days!

Challenging? Definitely. Rewarding? More than we’ll ever know.

We kicked it off today with Matthew 1-12. I’ll be using the blog to post insights, answer questions about confusing verses/passages, and share how God is working in my life through His Word

I can’t think of a better way to start a new year and a new decade than by immersing ourselves in God’s Word. Can’t wait to see how He moves in power through His revealed Word!

AC’ers…let’s do this!

***Special thanks to our friends at Elevation Church for taking this idea from concept to reality, for doing the graphic design work, and making it all available for free.