Stay

John 15:^4&7“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me… But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!”

To work the Word of God, you need to make four choices and they are all summed up in your faith. The first choice you need to make to work the Word is to Choose To Ingest It. Imagine someone who has a cough and purchased the most effective cough syrup on the market. He takes it to work, school, and puts it under his pillow, but never ingests the syrup. What do you think will happen? The cough will persist because the syrup is not useful under the pillow. A lot of people put their Bibles under their pillow, but they do not read them. The syrup is not useful in your car, people put their Bibles in their cars, yet they do not read them. The syrup is not useful on your desk, people put their Bible on their desks, but they do not read it.

The syrup is only useful inside you. It is when you take the syrup that the syrup can begin to work in you. The Word of God cannot be at work in you if the Word of God is not in you. Ingesting the Word is totally non-negotiable. James 1:²¹ “…receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” (KJV, emphasis added). You receive with meekness; this speaks to the state of your heart. You must humble yourself. If you are filled with your own ideas or worldviews you have embraced in the past, you cannot go far with God. You have to receive with meekness the engrafted Word. The word engrafted there means implanted.

To engraft something to an existing tree, you have to cut it open, insert the new branch, and tie it up. You have to make it one with the existing tree. Let me save you from some guilt in your life. You really do not need to finish the Bible in a year. For the earlier part of my walk with God, this thing literally tortured me because I was not a fast reader. I am a deep reader. So, I could start with Genesis chapter one and stay there for a long time, rather than going through ten chapters. But I discovered that I never really go past one Book in the Bible called Leviticus. Did you ever get stuck in Leviticus while reading through the Bible? I read through Genesis, and Exodus, then I get to Leviticus, and I am stuck. I start feeling guilty, then leave it and come back to it.

But I discovered that because I am hungry for God’s Word, I get to read it at different times of the day. And those different readings and experiences actually fill me up spiritually. So, while it is good to finish the Bible, and by God’s grace, I have finished the Bible. It is not written anywhere “Thou must finish the Bible in one year”. Never race through scriptures.

Prayer: Father, please give me a fresh hunger for Your Word and help me to be deliberate about ingesting Your Word daily, in Jesus Name. Amen!