Your life has a barometer attached to it. It goes everywhere you do. You can’t escape it. And by looking at your barometer, I can tell a lot about your spiritual life. I can quickly determine if you are stagnating or thriving, about to dry-up or blossom. Want to know what it is?
Your involvement in the Word of God.
Yep, its that simple.
I can tell a lot about your spiritual life from your time in the Word. If I walk up to you and ask you what you’ve been studying lately and you have a hard time telling me, it says quite a bit about your spiritual life. If I ask and the truth and substance of what you’ve been soaking in comes out of you with excitement, well, that tells me a lot too.
When I talk with teens or college students and they admit they are dealing with sin, suffering under huge problems, or wrestling with unhealthy stress, more often than not I already know what their time in the Word is like. Leonard Ravenhill is famous for saying “sinning will keep you from praying, and praying will keep you from sinning.” The same is true about Scripture.
The problems don’t magically go away when you get into the Word, but when Jesus is your purpose for Bible study, and He captures your focus, then somehow those problems don’t appear to be the same problems as before. Sure, they are still there, but your focus has shifted.
The Word grounds you upon a Rock (Jesus) and your life is able to be built strong and solid. There is no substitute for being in the Word!
If all your spiritual nourishment comes from attending classes, listening to sermons, and reading devotionals (while they all can be good), it is not more than mere milk or regurgitated food from someone else. You need to be in the Word yourself! Everything else is secondhand.
Preventing Burnout
As a related side issue, do you know what the number one thing you can do to prevent burnout in life, ministry, or vocation is?
Be a man or woman of the Word.
You will never hear an individual who in tiredness and defeat says, “Oh I don’t think I can make it anymore. I can’t go on!” And then with the next breath, with tremendous excitement in their voice exclaim, “But oh let met tell you about where I’ve been in the Word! It has been so exciting and life-giving! Jesus continually reveals new truth and it has been radically changing my life!!”
Those two statements don’t go together. It’s amazing when you continually saturate and soak in the Word, allowing it to pierce, prod, and change your life (Hebrews 4.12), how it prevents burnout in your life and mind. Sure, you might get physically tired but you will never burn out.
The Burning Question
So what does your barometer say about your spiritual life? How has your time in Scripture been? Has it been dull and lifeless or is it full of life and insight as the Spirit reveals truth to you and uses it to change your life?
You realize, there should never be a time in our lives that if someone asked us what we’ve been studying, we’d have to spend some time thinking about it. What if we could be in the Word like a sponge in water? What if we spent all day thinking, pondering, and praying over whatever passage we are studying?
Question: so what have you been studying lately and how is it changing your life? Answer in the comments below.
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