Friday, January 08, 2016

A Strategy For Beholding God: Consistent Bible Reading


These wait all upon Thee,
That Thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
That Thou givest unto them, they gather;
Thou openest Thine hand, they are satisfied with good.  Psalm 104:27-28

The resolve to behold God is essentially about waiting on Him. To wait on God is to join Christ in looking to Him as our supplier and commander. ALL that we have and are, have been and are being received from the hand of God. We truly have nothing to boast about in ourselves. Nothing. Positioning ourselves to wait on God is even a gift of grace that He grants us.

If we would behold Him, we must be always waiting on Him. Neither waiting on nor beholding God come naturally to us. We are naturally inclined to want satisfaction, but our hearts are master deceivers. Waiting on God is a special kind of waiting. It is about being aware of Him, in communion with Him, and totally dependent on Him. It has been said that we become what we behold. I like to take it a step further and say that, whether we realize it or not, we behold what we want to become. Beholding God is what happens when we truly are positioning ourselves to wait on Him. When our lives are shaped by that kind of waiting, everything becomes a finger that points directly to Him.

The hope of the Christian is the faithfulness of God. We know we cannot earn our way into God's favor...Here too, in resolving to behold God and positioning ourselves to wait on Him, we see His grace. As Andrew Murray says in chapter 4 of "Waiting on God", "...He [God] means His very demands to be promises of what He will do." Consistent Bible reading is one area where the demands and promises of God intersect.

Anyone can read the Bible. Anyone can commit to regular reading time. BUT, what such a resolve accomplishes and whether or not it exists is up to God. Christian, if you would behold God and wait on Him, you must be about the business of getting to know Him. The Bible is His special revelation given and preserved for the sake of His people. The point of today's post is this: We must make good use of His Word.

It is too easy to get caught up in waiting on OTHER things. And that waiting leads us to behold other things.

Choose a time each day, choose a plan, and make use of this means. The meat of God's Word is near, if you would wait on Him and behold Him, you must be about the business of gathering it and feasting upon it and drinking from this well that will not go dry. Check out this article for a list of plans and tons of resources. This is the plan I'm doing in 2016.

I have found that no means accomplishes so much as regular time spent in God's Word. It is in reading that Book that I have come to see God, to desire Him, and to find myself completely dependent on Him. The testimonies of consistent time in its pages have filled little books of their own. 

May 2016 be a year of consistent Bible reading. May God use this grace to fill you with such clear sight of Him that our lives are marked by waiting on and beholding Him.


How are you planning to devote yourself to consistent Bible reading in 2016?

Is this something you struggle with?






3 comments:

  1. Since the new year I haven't been consistent at all about having quiet time with God. I think it's mostly because I don't have a study or reading plan that keeps me on track. I really need to work on that. Thanks for the reminder of the importance!

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  2. This is so true! I've been reading through the old testament since last summer, and even though it seemed like a hassle at first (rules and genealogies), it has been such a powerful way to really get to know God's heart and character. I've been pretty good at making reading God's word part of my everyday for the last few years, but this year I'm trying to be intentional about scheduling it in on days that I know will be busy, so that I don't get to the end of the day without the time or energy for it.

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  3. "Christian, if you would behold God and wait on Him, you must be about the business of getting to know Him." <--- yes! Love this!

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