how many of you guys read your Bible everyday?
i know i have been falling behind on that. i try to do better, but i am usually exhausted & late.
why or why not?
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Setting the Boundary in Advance
“Even the wind and the waves obey Him.” (Mark 4:31)
The same applies to our personal lives before God. The Scriptures teach us some personal minimums: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, do not take the Lord's name in vain, and so forth.
The issue is not one of knowing those verses, the issue is deciding in advance, before the situation arises that we are going to obey them. If we wait until we are in the middle of an emotion-charged situation to decide what our response is going to be, we may very well make the wrong decision.
The key is to make the decision to obey what the Lord has laid out in advance. When we read the scripture "do not commit adultery," we make the decision that we are NOT going to place ourselves in a situation where we would be tempted to commit adultery. And, if we are tempted, we will turn and run away, as Joseph did.
To be very crisp about our personal minimums, we have to start with an internal decision of whether God is trustworthy. Does He really love me? As I look at Jesus Christ hanging on the cross because of my sin, do I really believe He loves me? Is that sufficient proof from God of His love for me? If so, then I can trust that His commandments to me are for my good.
We need to continually study the Scriptures to know the mind of Christ, to see what God’s commands and injunctions are for us. Then, through prayer, we build the structure of our life around the things God would have us do. We must let the Holy Spirit to help us carry out those decisions.
We need the fence of deciding in advance to obey His commandments. The structure of personal minimums before God is key to our relationship with Him and the effectiveness of our lives here on earth