Beware of These 5 Impure Motives That Try to Seep Into Your Quiet Time

Only one-third of Americans read their Bible once a week.

That means even fewer than one-third of all Americans read their Bible daily or make Bible study a regular practice in life.

This statistic is very telling.

What’s even more telling is that only one-fourth of Americans believe you can take the Bible literally, word-for-word. As a nation, we have ceased to believe the Bible is the literal word of God.

That God’s holy mouth spoke into the ear of the saints old who copied those words down that now comprise our Bible.

And yet, so many people who call themselves Christians today have somehow drifted away from the notion that the Bible is more than just a good book to read once in a way, but that it is central to our faith. It is what our entire faith rests upon.

But is reading the Bible enough?

Is simply reading a few verses, or even a chapter a day, enough to keep a spirit thriving and growing?

The answer is no. It is not enough for a person to read the Bible. If reading alone, or even study of the Bible, were enough to change a life and help the spirit thrive and grow, Jesus would have had no reason to rebuke the Pharisees.

As a matter of fact, many atheists and followers of cults have actually read and studied the Bible. And yet they remain in their delusion.

Furthermore, the devil himself can quote portions of the Bible.

5 Reasons Reading the Bible Is Not Enough

1. Reading the Bible does not make you a Christian

Reading the Bible no more makes one a Christian than reading a user manual will make you a Buick. It may make you more informed about Christianity, it make even make you more aware of God, but it will not make you a Christian. Acknowledging your sin, allowing the blood of Jesus to cleanse your heart and accepting Christ to govern your daily life makes you a Christian.

To that point, reading the Bible will not make you a better Christian or a growing Christian. While growing Christians read the Bible, reading the Bible will not make you grow.

What makes you grow is when you apply what you’ve read in the Bible and invest in your daily relationship with Jesus Christ.

2. Reading the Bible will not change you. 

Although there is great power in the Word of God, reading it on a printed page will not change you. It is your faith in what God has said and your obedience in living it out that will change you.

Even James said that we must be doers of the Word, not just hearers. Because hearing alone won’t change us. Reading God’s Word alone will not cause us to see how destitute we are without Christ. It is when we start putting the Word of God into action that we become fully aware of how lost we really are and how much we need grace for every minute of our day.

3. Reading the Bible will not protect you from bad things.

There are many bitter and ill-informed people out there who, for some reason, believed that reading the Bible would be their talisman against evil.

The Bible is not a magic charm that wards off evil. In fact, Jesus Himself promised Christians they’d have trouble just like non-Christians do. The difference is, when we fact bad things in life, we have hope in knowing that somehow God will bring good out of it.

Because He promised that, too. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28

4. Reading the Bible will not earn your brownie points with God.

God does not have a holy ranking system in heaven, by which He measures the level of your spirituality by the things you do. Reading your Bible, prayer, and other Christian disciplines will not earn you points with God.

Reading the Bible is the first step in spiritual growth.

We don’t read the Bible for God, we read the Bible for us—so that we will get to know God on a deeper level, so that we will know how we are to live, so that we will learn how to make wise choices based on Scripture and so that we will recognize deception when it comes our way.

There are no brownie points with God.

Ephesians makes it clear that God chose us, even before He created the world. Even when we were still walking in sin, He chose us. He loved us. And He can’t love us any more than He does right now.

5. Reading the Bible won’t make God do something for you.

Have you ever done this? “God, if you will just give me that job, I’ll read my Bible every single day for the rest of my life!”

Chances are, even if you do get the job, you won’t follow through with your end of the bargain.

Reading the Bible won’t make God do things for you. God doesn’t barter, and reading His Word isn’t a bargaining chip in your relationship with Him.

Even more, God won’t give you special favors because you read the Bible every day. If you’ve read through the Bible each year for the past 10 years, God still won’t give you special favors. He doesn’t work that way.

Any time God causes something to work in our favor, it is His grace. We can’t earn that favor by anything we do, because there are not enough righteous things that we can do that will ever tip the scales in our favor. There is not enough good to ever outweigh the bad we’ve done.

The only thing that gives us favor with God is the blood of Jesus Christ.

So, no, reading the Bible is not enough for a Christian to thrive and grow spiritually.

We must do so much more.

A thriving, growing Christian is a Christian who takes what he’s read, applies it to His life, and allows the Word of God to be the final authority for how he should live.

More than a guidebook
More than an instruction manual

The Bible is more than just a suggested way of life. It is what God expects and commands of every person who dares call himself by Christ’s name. {eoa}

Dr. F. Dean Hackett has served in full-time Christian ministry since October 1971. He has ministered throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, serving as pastor, conference speaker and mentor. He has planted four churches, assisted in planting 15 others, and currently serves as lead pastor of Living Faith Church in Hermiston, Oregon. Dr. Hackett founded Spirit Life Ministries International in 2001 to facilitate ministries in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina and to open a training center for workers in those nations. You can find him at F. Dean Hackett – Foundational, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.