Have you ever read the Bible and felt like every word was exploding off the page?  Where you marveled at how it spoke directly to your immediate circumstances or the secret questions in your heart? 

Have you ever read the Bible and felt like it was dry and boring?  Where you struggled to keep your eyes open and wondered how other people were so enthusiastic? 

If you’re like me, you’ve experienced both, but that’s not how it’s supposed to be.  Whenever we find that the scriptures aren’t so exciting to us, it points to an issue in our hearts:

Since the Word is alive, it should be alive in you. And when it is, it becomes exciting… When the Word is “dead letter” in you, it becomes head knowledge, and it is not living in you. And when it is not living in you, then it is not exciting. (excerpt from Feed The Seed & Meet The Need pt.3, by Dr. Chester C. Pipkin)

So how do we ensure that the Word is alive and not “dead letter?”  It takes faith

For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard [it]. (Hebrews 4:2 NKJV)

Pray before you read, and ask the Lord to guide you.  When we approach the scriptures not as a duty or mental exercise, but with faith in God- faith that He is speaking to us- it ignites that spark and makes what we are reading alive in our hearts.  ​

For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed [it] not [as] the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. (1 Thessalonians 2:13 NKJV)

Let’s take care to stay in faith, and in doing so we will keep ourselves in a position where we can experience the life-giving power of the scriptures every time we read them.