Why and How Should I Read the Bible?

Fact: The Bible is the world's #1 bestseller. Every single year.

In fact, this is such a fact, that it is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Perhaps the Bible is the best-selling book year after year because it is so powerfully impactful in our lives. Or perhaps because of our human nature to search for that relationship with a higher being. Or perhaps because Isaiah said that "The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever" (Isaiah 40:8).

Whatever your opinion is, Jesus does tell us that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). Food is not enough; money is not enough; fame is not enough. No matter how little or how much we have, our natural craving for deeper meaning and purpose is evidence of a God that wants a relationship with us.

Revelation and Relationship

The Bible is just that: a manual for a life in relationship with Christ. Do you agree with Nicky that we are wired to have a relationship with God? Have you noticed that reading the Bible often confirms what you have been thinking? Have you experienced your conscience telling you not to do something? God is working in your life to have a relationship with you.

Now let's take a step back. Take yourself back to an evening where you saw the sun set with a beautiful array of colours. A stunning show of a lightning and thunder battle. A peaceful morning of the sun's glimmer on the lake. An understanding of the complexity of our genetic makeup. A miracle of the birth of a baby. Creation, the Bible tells us, reveals to us that God exists. It is the Bible, however, that reveals who God is.

The Bible is inspired by God and written by various different men across hundreds of years. The Bible isn't necessarily a simple book all about positive emotions. There are difficult issues to tackle - take suffering and death, for example; in the discussion of our experiences with reading the Bible, we all could express times where we did not understand the meaning of what we read or we did not understand God's actions. Yet for many of us, we can also recall times that reading the Bible brought us peace. This is because the Bible is His story, a story of God's love for us.

So is the Bible still relevant today? In our round-table discussion, we noted that the Bible helps us to learn who God is; it provides guidelines for living; it keeps us close in a relationship with God; it provides advice for life issues that we face today: money, relationships, temptations, etc.

But depending on our life experiences, we may view the Bible as a book of rules rather than relationship. But I encourage you to remember who God is: LOVE. As we discussed last week, He is the father and like any good-loving father, there are rules set in place because He loves us and wants to protect us. Believing in God and obeying his rules does not limit your freedom. If anything, it makes you more free because you can trust in God every step of the way.

This Week's Alpha Challenge:

1. Set a time in the day to read the Bible.

And when you are reading:

• Pray to God to speak to your heart.
• Ask yourself how the verse/chapter you read applies to you specifically.

2. Throughout your day, ask yourself: "Is God trying to speak to me? Is He trying to tell me something? Am I willing to listen?"

Why and How Do I Pray?

Every relationship flourishes through communication. While actions can speak louder than words, our friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse, and children still love to hear with words how much we love them. When it comes to parents or a significant other, they love to hear how important they are to us, how much we depend on them, and how thankful we are for them. We love to see actions that prove it, but we also long for words that state it. 

God is the same.
He longs for us to communicate with Him. As we discussed, He knows what we are doing in life; He knows how we are feeling; He knows what our needs are. Our actions tell God how important (or not important) our God-Me relationship is. Just like a spouse knows what our little facial expressions mean, what sorts of silly habits we do, and what our individual quirks are, God knows everything about us. But He still wants to talk WITH us! What kind of relationship can you have if there is no communication?

Communicating with God is known as prayer. So what exactly does this involve?
Prayer is not just us asking God for help. When we pray, we are engaging in a two-way conversation with God, where He hears our prayers and where we can learn to listen to what He might have to say in response. 

God's response to prayer was a hot topic for our discussion. If God so badly wants us to communicate with Him, why won't He answer our prayers? We agreed that God's answers to our prayers can be "Yes", "No", or "Not Yet". The difficulty is that if a prayer is not answered, we tend to not know why. This comes down to trusting that God knows what is best for you. However, Nicky also points us to several verses that tell us our prayers may not be answered if there is:
- Unconfessed sin
- Unforgiveness
- Disobedience
- Wrong motives 
- Misunderstanding of God's will
- Wrong timing

Even if something works out that we prayed for, how do we know if it's God answering our prayers or simply coincidence that everything worked out? I think it really does depend on your outlook on life. I dare you to start heartfully praying for the little things in life. Do these prayers get answered? You may find that things in the world are aligning too well for it to be coincidence. Plus, what harm can there really be in praying a little? 

As we shared our personal stories together, some of us noted that some of our prayers did not get answered, and looking back, we are so thankful for that. Perhaps what we thought was best was not really in our best interest or in the best interest of others. Nicky reminded us that God's answer is always in love; He knows what is best for us. During our discussion, I thought of a line from a country song: "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers." You can listen to it here: Unanswered Prayers: Video and Lyrics.

People do pray in different ways and Nicky Gumbel reminds us of who we are talking to when we pray. Some people pray, "Hey you, Jesus, my homeboy..." (just imagine the accent, I have actually heard this), and while I do not want to disrespect them, we must remember that God is God - perfect, holy, just, loving, compassionate. And when we pray, we are praying to the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit. God deserves our utmost respect. At the same time, however, we should not paint God as being so holy that He is unreachable for us or unwilling to talk to us. Remember, when Jesus prayed, He prayed, "Abba", which means daddy. Think about when you were little (or maybe still now) when you called your father, daddy. Yes, we respect our father, but we still have that intimate relationship with him where we can depend on him and ask for help, knowing that he loves us deeply. The exact same is true for God. 


Therefore, we should be modelling Jesus' prayers. If you are not familiar with the Lord's Prayer, I suggest you look up Matthew 6: 9-13 - or the photo here. This prayer is a fantastic guideline for how we should pray, whether you pray it verbatim, break it down and expand, or use similar topics. Whether you have decided to just start praying today, or whether you have been praying for some years now, I suggest the following acronyms to help guide you.

Prayer Tips:

Adoration                             Praise
Confession                           Repent
Thanksgiving                       Ask
Supplication                         Yield


If you are up for a challenge, this is for you:
1. Start a prayer journal. Record your prayers and see how often God does answer your prayers.
2. Pray for the impossible. Be adventurous in your prayers - don't doubt what God can really do.
3. Be honest. God knows how you are feeling. Lay it all out, you'll be surprised at the results.



Photo Credit: http://angchronicles.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/lords_prayer.gif

How Can We Have Faith?

A common misconception is that believing in God makes you a Christian. Just believing that God exists, however, is not enough. A Christians is one who follows Christ, one who has "become a child of God" (John 1:12).

Ultimately, faith (believing in things not yet seen) rests on 3 pillars. I like to think of it as this:

1. The Word of God

• Trusting God's promises (unchanging and guaranteed) vs. Trusting our feelings (changeable and perhaps deceiving)
• God says: "Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in..." (Revelations 3:20)
• The promise of eternal life when you have faith in Him

2. The Work of Jesus

• God's forgiveness and salvation cannot be earned.
• God's gift is free, but it's not cheap: it cost Him His life.
• His sacrifice proves His love for us - free to receive it (John 3:16)

3. The Witness of the Spirit

• When someone becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us
• He transforms us - our characteristics and relationships as we become more loving, patient, kind, etc
• He also convicts us and assures us that we belong to God

In our discussion on faith, we came to agree that the characteristics of our relationships with people are the same as with God - there is (or at least should be) love, companionship, committment, honesty. Our relationship with other people reflects our relationship with God. Where are you at? Do you notice qualities of love, patience, committment in your relationships?

Basing faith on the promises of God makes one's faith more stable than when it is based on our feelings. It is much more difficult to have strong faith when you are going through tough times. Our situations in life change, but the promises of God are just that, promises.Faith is trusting (and knowing) that God's got your back!

So when we base our faith on the promises of God and on the witness of the Spirit, is it arrogant for people to say they are sure they are going to heaven? Our discussion on this question led to the idea that thinking you are good enough (comparing yourself to others) will get you into heaven. But is that really true? A study shows that 90% of Americans think they are going to heaven while 9% are unsure. 90%! That's quite a high percentage, so are they being arrogant? Maybe it is more ignorance. Or a postmodern perspective of religious pluralism and relativism, the idea that many roads lead to God. As a group, we mentioned that trying to be "good enough" or trying to buy youself into heaven can't save you. Just remember what God says: He loves you; He is knocking at your heart waiting for you to open the door. It's free.

Why Did Jesus Die?

This week, we discussed one of the core truths of the Christian faith: the cross. Many people have heard of Jesus and of Christianity yet do not know how crucial Jesus' death is to the Christian faith.

Nicky Gumbel highlighted three key areas:

1. The Problem : Sin 

    I think we can all admit that we have made some serious mistakes in life. And it's extremely obvious from the things happening around us that sin is evident in our world. In our discussion on sin, we came to an agreement that sin is a thought or action that offends God. There are many people, however, that think that sin is the 'bigger' wrongs one commits (ie: murdering, stealing, etc). Even if we see ourselves as being good people compared to others who commit these bigger offenses, we "all have sinned", every single one of us (Romans 3:23). Nicky says that sin is not just a minor issue: it pollutes our mind and our body; it entices us into repeating the behaviours; it leads to death; it separates us from God.

As a group, we discussed the addictive and destructive nature of sin, noting that from personal experiences our sin can destroy ourselves and those around us. Sin doesn't self-contaminate, its effects spread like a contagious illness.

We quickly found out, though, that there may not necessarily be a distinct white and black line for what sin is. Take lying for example. Is a lie always a sin? Or can it be contextual? Is lying to a gunman about where the children hiding a sin? Perhaps it is our attitude that is the most important factor.
When we lie to someone, the action may look bad but if we are doing it to protect someone, is it still bad? Or when we are doing good deeds, our action may look good but if we are doing it to boost ourselves up, is it really a good deed?

2. The Solution: Cross

The most important truth of the cross is this: GOD LOVES YOU!
God loves each and every one of us. It doesn't matter who you are or what you have done. God still loves you. In fact, our sin is exactly why Jesus came as a substitution for us - because we have been separated by God and He wants us back. Jesus came to this world and suffered on our behalf. Why? Because "by His wounds, we are healed."

Nicky provided a helpful analogy of two friends who went separate ways, one becoming a judge, the other becoming a criminal. When the criminal appeared before the judge, the judge still had show justice and so he handed out a fine. However, he also showed his love as a friend and paid the fine for his criminal friend. The same is true for God: He is perfectly just and perfectly loving. Our penalty for sin is death, but He paid it for us so that we don't have to. Imagine if the criminal did not accept the money...the debt that he would owe. Imagine if we do not accept God's payment...the debt that we owe.

3. The Result: Freedom

God is love, but love never forces. Therefore, God the gift of forgiveness is offered to us, but we must receive it. And when we do, the pollution of sin is removed, the power of sin is broken, the penalty of sin is paid, and we are reconciled in a relationship with God.

In discussing God's forgiveness, we mentioned the external or internal changes that may occur as we are forgiven. Some people experience intense emotional relief while others have body sensations. But we did discover that forgiveness from God does not mean that we are simply let off from the consequences. There is a spiritual and a temporal aspect to our actions: we can be forgiven by God, but we may still have to deal with the earthly consequences. Let's say if I committed a crime for example and the justice system required me to be sentenced to 10 years in prison. God may forgive me in a spiritual sense, but I still am responsible for my actions and must pay the 10 years.


As we have experienced, "What is sin?" is not a question easily answered. However, the question "Why did Jesus die?" has a clear answer: God loves us.

I encourage you to take some time this week to think about the personal implications. This is not a simple topic so feel free to ask questions or post comments. The comment box is now open to anyone so I will get a notification if you post :)

Enjoy your week and I'll see you next week!