I have a confession to make.
Sometimes, when I read the Bible, I don’t get anything from it. Have you read Leviticus and Numbers yet? If you have, maybe you might know what I mean.
You might be wondering why I am telling you this. It’s not to deter you from reading the Bible, but to help you rethink what you are reading.
If you are honest and haven’t reached maturity like myself, then you might have said these same words before at one point in your life.
After reading a chapter in Leviticus, I thought to myself:
“I feel like it was way harder to be a Priest at that time considering all the animal offerings and sacrifices that needed to be made for themselves and the community. I definitely don’t have the stomach for it. Imagine if we still had to do those things today? Thank God for Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice on the cross for our sins.”
Besides the reminder of how good we have it because of Jesus, I didn’t get anything else except that I probably wouldn’t be cut out for the priesthood because I don’t do well with slaughtering animals.
As I walked away from my devotional time with the Lord, I felt the Holy Spirit start to convict me. He was reminding me to pay attention to what I was expecting from the Lord. He showed me that the society we live in promotes the need for cognitive stimulus, whether it’s from television, movies, social media and even reading. We are constantly looking for some form of stimulus, and we have elevated the need for stimulus in the mind and emotions in everything we do. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when we view the Bible with the same lenses and expect to be stimulated in our mind, we are actually devaluing the word by measuring its worth/power/effectiveness by a means that it was not necessarily intended to be measured by.
A good book is stimulating to the mind and emotions of a person. The Bible is more than a good book. Please don’t be fooled by the form it has taken and the label we have given it as a book, because what makes it great is far beyond what any book can offer.
I need to be clear. I believe the Bible is not intended to stimulate your mind and emotions, but to feed and fill your spirit.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
– 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)
Although the scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness as mentioned in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, we must remember that it is God-breathed, which was translated as being inspired by God, referring to God being the author of scripture and people as being the recorders of those words.
I would like to suggest to you that the scripture that was God-breathed was intended to feed your spirit. The words that were being recorded are the human attempts to capture what was being felt, spoken and experienced in their Spirit through the Holy Spirit.
We often make the mistake of reading scripture and thinking that we got nothing out of it because we are expecting some kind of cognitive and emotional stimulus when the reality of the power of scripture is that it feeds your spirit first. Everything else is secondary.
When Jesus said man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God, I believe He was referring to the inspired words that come from the Holy Spirit. These words don’t just hit your mind but they hit your spirit.
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
– Matthew 4:4 (NIV)
The power of scripture is felt in your spirit, not in your mind, not in your body, not in your emotions/feelings. Although the scriptures through the spirit can manifest in those areas and are not restricted in any way, I believe it is first and foremost a filling and connecting of the spirit.
If we are not attuned to our spirit and the Holy Spirit, we may think nothing or light of what we are consuming when we read the Bible. We may read without engaging our Spirit. We may think less of our time with the Lord because of the lack of revelation or cognitive/emotional stimulation, when in fact God may be pouring into your spirit and you don’t even know it.
Perhaps the next time you read the scripture or think that you got nothing out of it, remind yourself of what is being fed. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you up, regardless of how stimulating the words are, and remember that the life that comes out of them is from the Spirit for your spirit.
Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit will fill our spirit as we read your word. May your fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control be manifest in our lives. May we enter into your presence with the expectation that our spirits will be filled and that we would connect with you again and again. We thank you for Jesus, the word made flesh, that we may come to know how to live by the Spirit and in communion with you through Him. In your son’s name Jesus, we pray, Amen!