First Christian Church

I'm sure many of you by now have began keeping your New Year's resolutions. Hopefully, one of those resolutions is to read your Bible on a daily basis. Yes, I know that is much easier said than done.

However, many of you are keeping up with that goal and are making your way through the boof of Genesis or Matthew, depending on which Testament you began reading.

Today I want to encourage you not to just read it, but to also obey it! Now that is really a challenge. Especially when we get to parts we don't agree with. I've said for years that people don't read the Bible because they can't understand it, they don't read it because they don't agree or want to obey it.

In today's verse posted above, Jesus tells His disciples to keep the word. James said something similiar. James said for us to be a doer of the Word and not a hearer only (James 1:22). To do so he said would be deceiving ourselves. How so?

When we just read the Word of God and we don't apply it to our lives, we are deceiving ourselves by thinking that just reading is enough. We expect the blessings of God without being obedient to Him. The Bible doesn't work that way. Throughout the Torah (first give books of the Bible) and the New Testament, God tells us to be obedient to His Word. It is where most Christians miss the mark so to speak.

I encourage you to make it a resolution this year to not only read God's Word but to follow and obey it! Then you will begin to experience God's tremendous blessings!