Why Your Daily Time in The Bible is So Important – Part 2 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

Truly God is good to Israel,
    to those whose hearts are pure.
But as for me, I almost lost my footing.
    My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.
For I envied the proud
    when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness.

You guide me with your counsel,
    leading me to a glorious destiny.

Psalm 73:1-3, 24 (NLT)

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Transcript

Good morning.

All this week, we’re talking about reasons why your time with God in the Bible each day is so important. And you know, each weekday morning at this time, we stop to do just that. Open the Bible and take some time with God. I love that expression because it’s not just ‘take some time to read the Bible’, but ‘some time with God’.

Because when you open your Bible and you read it, you meet with God. God speaks to us. God loves to speak to the listening heart, and I wonder today in your life, is your heart open to listen to God because He wants to speak into your life. He loves you. He’s committed to you, and he wants to really make a difference in the way that you live.

Well, yesterday we saw that our time with God in the Bible gives us God’s perspective and God’s perspective always gives us hope.

Today, I want to take us to another well-known passage from the Old Testament, which is in Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. It says this.

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Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

All right, trust in the Lord. Don’t lean on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and he will make straight your paths. That is, God is going to guide your life. He’s going to make it clear what your path is ahead of you. The old translation of this was, and He will direct your paths.

Here’s the second reason to spend time in God’s word every day, and that is this: that God’s Word gives you a basis for making your life’s decisions.

So often isn’t it true as we face decisions in life we don’t know which way to go, right? We need God’s light there, giving us guidance. I know sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I can’t stand light in our room when I’m sleeping, and so any little light that a charger is putting off or anything, I hang a sock over it or something like that.

But sometimes I’ll wake up and I’ll get up and I have no idea which way I’m facing. It’s pitch black in there. And at that point, I think, well, actually I could use a little light right now. Well, sometimes we face decisions in our lives, and we have no clue which way to go. We don’t know what to do. And God’s Word gives us God’s perspective, and often when God is guiding us in life, he doesn’t send somebody to say this is what God wants you to do, or He doesn’t give you some kind of miraculous guidance.

Sometimes he does that, but very often what he does is he gives you a perspective on life that makes it clear which path you should move in.

And that perspective comes through your time with God in His Word. I mean, when these verses say Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding, well, whose understanding are you going to lean on? It says in all your ways acknowledge Him. Well, where are you going to get a sense of what God’s understanding is about your situation? You’re going to get it as you spend time each day opening God’s word.

And here’s what I want to say to you. Don’t wait until you are at a crisis. You have to make a decision in the next 10 minutes and it’s going to change the course of your life. You don’t know which way to go. And blindly open your Bible, stick your finger down and say, what is it going to say to me? Now what this verse is describing is a way of life.

In all your ways acknowledge him: it says you’re building a way of life that listens to God, that isn’t based on your own understanding, that takes God’s perspective on life and begins to build that into your perspective on life. If you want to be a person who moves confidently forward in life, who knows how to make the right decisions in the circumstances you face, then build a habit of every day opening God’s word, the Bible and reading it with an open heart.

Not just to get some information but to spend time with God, and you will find God shaping your life in such a way that your path is straight before you.

I’m John North.

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