Practical suggestions that can make your Bible studies more effective
Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ! Welcome to „Daily Word for Spiritual Edification”!
Yesterday we started to look at some practical suggestions that can make your Bible studies more effective. Let’s review them:
- Pray for God to give you great hunger for God’s Word.
- Follow a balanced ‘biblical diet’.
- Adhere to some order in your studies.
- Read your Bible even when you are not in a mood for it or do not have a desire.
Today I would like to give some more advice for your Bible studies.
- Put together a Bible study plan going from more simple to more complicated things.
Such plan disciplines us and stimulates to continue with what we have begun. It applies to all areas of our lives. The lack of plan usually leads to lack of striving. When we have a plan, we have a goal and are more motivated to strive to reach it. You must know where you are going. So you need to develop a plan for your Bible studies that would help you read through the Bible every year. If we read 3 chapters a day, we can go through the Bible in a year. Later I will share some Bible reading plans that could be useful.
- Have a journal where you record the things God reveals to you during your Bible reading sessions.
It will help you to go back and meditate on the revelations and lessons God has given you. If you contemplate on what has been revealed to you, you will receive more wisdom from God.
In the Book of Joshua we find an interesting illustration for our theme:
« Then Joshua said to the children of Israel: “How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers has given you? Pick out from among you three men for each tribe, and I will send them; they shall rise and go through the land, survey it according to their inheritance, and come back to me. And they shall divide it into seven parts. Judah shall remain in their territory on the south, and the house of Joseph shall remain in their territory on the north. You shall therefore survey the land in seven parts and bring the survey here to me, that I may cast lots for you here before the LORD our God. But the Levites have no part among you, for the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance. And Gad, Reuben, and half the tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan on the east, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them.” Then the men arose to go away; and Joshua charged those who went to survey the land, saying, “Go, walk through the land, survey it, and come back to me, that I may cast lots for you here before the LORD in Shiloh.” » (Joshua, 18:3-8).
God has prepared for His children the Promised Land that was flowing with milk and honey and there was abundance in it. God commanded them to possess the land. Our ‘land’ is the Bible. Inside of it there is abundance and precious God’s promises in it. And God wants us to possess all of it. In order to do it we need to survey and get to know our land – the Bible.
Joshua told the children of Israel to walk the land. We also should walk through our land, survey it, make notes and see what is where in it. It will help us to possess it.
This passage of Scripture tells us that until the children of Israel surveyed the land, they did not have apprehension of what the land contained. Unless we walk our Bible land, we also do not know what we can find in it.
We may hear others saying that the Bible is a wonderful and blessed book, but God desires for us to experience it for ourselves. So when you read it, you need to take notes of what God is showing you in His Word. Then afterwards when you will meditate on these notes, you will be able to possess this land because it will have become yours.
Tomorrow we will continue talking about the things that can help you in your Bible studies and turn us from theorists into practitioners.
I wish you abundant God’s blessings!
Pastor Rufus Ajiboye
