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Is today the day that you will finally become a daily reader of God's word? Not so that you can brag to others that you're doing this. You don't even have to tell other people that you're doing this, but so that you can find out for yourself what God wants you to do. Well, I want to talk about that today. My name is Rick Bloodworth. This is the Common Sense Christian Channel. And I want to look at the things that I believe helped me to become a daily Bible reader and such a way that it actually changed my life, because that's what the word of God will do for you. When you come into contact with God's truth and you believe it, it will necessarily change your life. And so today we're talking about nothing short of changing your life if this is something you're not already doing. And I want to begin with an example, a true story, of a little boy. He grew up to be W. Clement Stone, who was an owner of one of the world's largest insurance companies. But before that, he was a little poor orphan boy, essentially, or not an orphan boy, but he had lost his father. He was born in 1902 in Chicago. His dad died when he was just about two or three years old in 1905. And so W. Clement Stone was raised by his mother, a good, solid woman, a God fearing woman. But During this time, she had to do everything she could just to put food on the table. And so, the little stone boy really did grow up in many ways on his own. When he was six years old, he got his first job. He was going to help his mother with some of the bills. And so, he became a newspaper boy on Chicago's tough south side. Now you can imagine a little six year old boy during that era, somewhere around 1908, the, the newspaper business was pretty well run by little kids as far as the selling end of it, and, and these kids were pretty jealous of their location. And so here he comes in, six years old, smallest boy out there, lowest man on the totem pole, how is he going to compete with these older boys? For that matter, how is he going to keep from getting beat up every day and run off to a new location? Well, the first day, this was his very problem that he had to figure out. He had spent his few pennies on the newspapers, and now he had to figure out how he could find a location where he could safely sell them. And so he hit upon the idea of going into a restaurant. And so sure enough, he did. He went into a restaurant named Hole's Restaurant. And the first table, as, as a chance would have it, he was able to make his first sale. Well, that gave this little boy encouragement. And so he went to the next table and made another sale. And then finally, Mr. Hole the owner of the restaurant, ran him out. Well, he waited a few minutes and then he went back in because he still had that stack of papers and he needed to be able to sell them. Well, the customers admired his pluck, and so at the third table he stopped at, he even received a ten cent tip, a fortune for a little boy. And Mr. Hole ran him out again. Well, after a few moments, the little boy walked back in and, and the customers laughed and they said, just let him, let him alone. And so finally, Mr. Hole threw up his hands in disgust. And from that point forward, little W. Clement Stone would go into that restaurant each day and sell his newspapers. And over the years, he and Mr. Hole became good, good friends. But it's, it's what he learned during this time that he said actually set the foundation for his career later on in selling insurance to people. And he talked about three main things. They, these three things were, were know how. The second was activity knowledge. And the third was inspiration to action. Well, know how is just that. You figure out how to do something. You have, you have that information before you. And that was, that was what he figured out the first day. He knew that they needed the money. He knew he was going to be out of those few pennies that he really couldn't afford to buy those newspapers. And so he very quickly learned the know how to sell newspapers. And then the activity knowledge was that specific knowledge you need for whatever you're doing, whether it was selling newspapers or whether it was selling insurance later on. If when he became an insurance salesman for his mother when he was still in high school, he learned everything he could about the insurance business. And so he got knowledge on the activity that he was going to take part in. But he had a very important comment that went along with this. And he said, many people do not succeed in life. And it's not because they don't know how to do it or what to do, but it's because they're not inspired to action. Well, this is the very thing I want to talk to you about today, getting this inspiration, this motivation. to read the word of God. Imagine this, you're before God on judgment day and you will be before God someday at the judgment and you're kneeling before him and you hear from him that you didn't make it, that, that you, you did not live the life that he had called you to live. that, that you had not taken care of the sin that was in your life by accessing his grace and the shed blood of Christ in their way. And because of that, you're lost. You're doomed for all eternity. I don't know if you've ever received a terrible bit of news. There have been people who have stood before a judge in court. And, and, and the jury comes in and they read the verdict and you're hoping against hope that they'll find you innocent even though you know in your heart you're not. But you hear the words guilty and now the judge is about to sentence you to prison. Your entire life will change at this point and you'll be thinking, oh if I could have only not done this. If I could have done things different, if I could have held my, my temper or if I could have contained my greed or whatever sinful act that you had that caused you to do whatever crime that you did, but here you are guilty. And as you're processing this guilty and your brain is just swimming with the almost impossibility of the situation. and the hopelessness of the situation. Now maybe you can understand what it will be like to be before God on judgment day and hear essentially those words, guilty, depart from me. I never knew you. Can you imagine what that will be like? Now, on the other hand, you've had wonderful things in your life, things that have happened to you that you just could not believe your, your, your great fortune. Maybe that, that one person when you were young and, and, and starting to think about getting married, and that one person who, who you really had this deep affection for returned that affection. And you asked them to marry you and they said yes, or, or, or they ask you to marry them. And, and, and, and you said immediately, yes, it was the best thing you could have possibly imagined or, or maybe when, when you had that first child and, and after all the, the, the nine months of carrying that child and, and the pain and, and the suffering that goes along with delivery. And, and then that baby is born and you hear that baby's first cry, that sweet cry, and you hold that baby and, and you think that, that life just couldn't get any better than this, as you see this miracle from God in your arms now. There have been times when you have received such good news that, that you just, you still go back and you savor those moments. This is the thing that will motivate us, I believe. These are the things that will inspire us to action. God has punishment, yes, the fear of hell, and that should be very real in our lives, but he also has tremendous reward. Someday, We'll kneel before God at the judgment. Imagine hearing something along the lines of, Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master's happiness. Can you imagine what that day will be like? You'll know you don't deserve it. You'll know that you had sin in your life, but you'll also know that by God's grace, And by the sacrifice that Jesus made in your place, and by doing your small part to make sure that you are accepting the terms of that grace, accepting the terms of being a Christian and accessing the blood, the shed blood of Christ, you get to be with him forever. Now, let me say this, how will you know what to do so that you make sure that you're on the right side of judgment? And the only answer that could possibly be is by knowing what God wants, by knowing how Those who are saved are saved by knowing how those who are lost can get out of that lost condition and be saved. By knowing how, how once you have been saved to continue to be pleasing to him. The only way you can know for sure is to read his word. I still remember when I first started reading the word of God on a daily basis. I knew I needed to be doing that. I'd been raised in a good Christian home, but quite frankly, I never really saw the point. Mom and dad had told me everything I needed to know, I thought. The preachers that, that I had heard through the years had told me everything I knew, I had thought. I even went to a Christian college and I had a number of Bible classes and surely those Bible professors told me everything I needed to know, or so I thought. But it wasn't until I was probably about 22, 23 years old, then I started just reading the Bible on a regular basis. And I just started reading through the Bible. And I started discovering things I did not know. I found out there were some things that I was just sure was the truth that turned out wasn't the truth. And I found out that there were things that I was just sure weren't right, that I found from the Word of God that they were right. I found that even though there were people in my life that loved me, that did not want to mislead me in any way, that did not want me to be lost, there were still people in my life who had inadvertently given me the wrong information because they had the wrong information. And so the only way you can know is to read for yourself. I suppose now some 40 plus years later, I've read through the Bible over a hundred times. I'm not saying that to boast. I haven't missed a meal during that time or many meals during that time either. But, but I was a preacher for 29 years. I've worked with youth groups for over 40 years. It has been my responsibility and, for a while, my paid responsibility. to read the Word of God, to study the Word of God, so I could pass that along accurately. And as I have done that, I have discovered that you can understand the Word of God. It's not magic. I realize that intelligent people disagree with what the Word of God says. That's a moot point and a silly argument. The only thing that should matter to you is when you read the Bible, what do you find? What do you understand? Because that's what you are going to find on judgment day that you're judged by. You might find out that you were wrong in an area or two, but that you are doing your very best to be right. And you might find out that God's grace will cover that because you are doing your very best. Isn't that what we're commanded to do? 2nd Timothy chapter 2 and in verse 15, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Think about that for a moment. were commanded to correctly handle the Word of Truth. That means it's possible to correctly handle the Word of Truth. It doesn't matter that smart men and women throughout the ages have sometimes had difficulty in correctly handling the Word of Truth. You're not responsible for them. You're responsible for yourself. You do your best. Isn't that what this passage says? To present yourself to God as one approved? It doesn't say you are required to be perfect in every bit of knowledge that you ever obtain. It says do your best. And so by that we understand that we are commanded to do our best, to be as perfect as we can. But so many people use these weak arguments. Smart people disagree. So why should I try? That's a great reason to stand on the side of the road with a will work for food sign and not have any intention of working. It's because you've given up on the idea of making an honest living. That's pretty sad in the physical world, but in the spiritual world, when you defer your eternity, to the knowledge of others. You need to be inspired to, to, to action. When you read things like do your best to correctly handle the word of truth. This needs to inspire you to understand. First of all, you're required to do your best. Second, you're required to correctly handle the word of truth. And third, since it's commanded that you do that, it's possible to do it. So stop thinking about the impossible and start thinking about what you can do. Okay. You remember when Jesus, that the occasion that we read of in Matthew chapter four, when Jesus was sent into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He had been there for 40 days fasting. And it says at the end of those 40 days in Matthew chapter four, that he was hungry. And it was at that point that the tempter came to him. He challenged him, not only with his physical needs, but with his vanity. If you truly are the Son of God, the devil said, command these stones to turn into bread. And do you remember what Jesus said? It is written, man does not live by bread alone, but upon every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This quotation was from Deuteronomy chapter eight. It was part of the old law. And now he's bringing this in to the New Testament era, though he hasn't died on the cross yet. This is true. And they're still under the old law at this point. This is true. The, the, the principle is still the same. Man doesn't live by physical bread alone. We live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. How can you live by every word that comes from the mouth of God if you don't know what those words are? If you have not read it in the word of God, how do you know that you can't understand the word of God until you start digging into it and finding out for yourself? It's true that there are some difficult passages of prophecy, some of which have not even been fulfilled yet, so we can't possibly know everything about those, those, those words of prophecy. Think back to the time after Jesus had been crucified and he had risen from the dead. Towards the end of John it tells us that, that Peter and the apostle who loved Jesus, John, were running to the tomb and it said they still did not understand from the scripture that the Christ had to raise from the dead. Think about that. These two men, these two apostles that were in Christ's inner circle, Peter and John, even though Jesus had told them that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of wicked men, that he must be crucified and on the third day raised up again, even though he had told them that, even though they had the passages of prophecy from the Old Testament, it says they still did not understand from the scriptures that Jesus had to rise from the dead so that there we understand there are difficult passages of prophecy which we cannot fully understand, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the direct statements in the Bible. The New Testament is the era in which we live. And so you need to be concentrating on the New Testament first and foremost. After you've done that, by all means, go back and read the Old Testament, but you need to know what the New Testament says. And you're going to find out that what God wants us to do is fairly simple. He will tell you things like don't steal, don't lie, don't commit adultery. He tells you what sin is. He will tell you things about the worship, such as singing to him and offering praise to him and partaking of the Lord's supper on the first day of the week. You can read that in the New Testament. They're not hidden. They're not difficult to understand. And he tells you what it takes to be safe. He tells us that we have to first of all, hear the word. That's why you're going to begin reading. And I hope you'll begin reading and studying today so you can hear the word. And once you've heard it and you have a good mind and understand it, you'll believe it. And so God has told us that we need to confess that belief, that we need to repent of our sins. That repentance isn't just feeling bad that we got caught. It's that we feel bad that we've done it. And it's not just stopping doing the sin, it's now starting to turn towards God. So we repent of our sins. We're baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of those sins. So he tells us to be baptized. Baptism is, is mentioned I think about 40 times in the New Testament on, on, in over two dozen different passages of scripture, not talking about the baptism of John, but the baptism into Christ. But we read these things and we understand what we need to do. But you don't just accept people's word. There's a lot of people who feel different things about different things about what the Bible says. We're commanded to do our best to present ourself to God as one approved, who correctly handles the word of truth. So you, have to be doing your best to correctly handle the Word of Truth. That's simple to understand, but it requires effort. This is what W. Clement Stone found when he was six years old and he needed to sell his newspapers so that he could have some money to bring home to his mother. He knew what he had to do, sell papers. He learned how to sell those papers. So he had the knowledge and the know how But he was also inspired to action. He didn't want to let his mother down and he knew they needed the money. That was his inspiration and he was not going to let down his mother. We need to be inspired to action on a number of different fronts. First of all, we need to love God enough and Christ enough to where we don't want to let them down. Jesus died for us. Why would you want to let him down? God so loved the world that he gave his only son and then he extends his grace to us. Why would you want to let him down? You have children who are counting on you, perhaps a spouse who is counting on you, perhaps friends who are counting on you for sure. Do you realize that you are some people in this life's best chance for ever coming into contact with the truth? You have that responsibility and you love them. Why would you want to do anything else? And you're going to stand before God on Judgment Day or kneel before God on Judgment Day and so too are they. Why would you want to do anything else? You need to be inspired to action. And so this day, let me encourage you. If you're not already a daily Bible reader, let this day be the day that you begin. It doesn't have to be something grand. You can just open up the Word of God and start reading. Some days you won't have much more time than just to read a few verses. Read those few verses. I can remember when I was starting to become a daily Bible reader. There was a night or two where I woke up as I was trying to go sleep and realizing I hadn't read my Bible that day. So I just turned the light on and quickly read a few verses. How much good did that do? Probably not a lot in obtaining knowledge, but it went a long way in establishing a lifelong, excellent habit. And so I read the Bible every day. It's a privilege. It's not a bragging right. It's a gift that God gives to you, but it's also a gift that you give back to God because you're doing your best now to find out how he wants you to serve him. And you're finding the information that will tell you how to do that. And you want to help others in this life. This is a cruel world, isn't it? It's getting worse every day. There needs to be some bright spots in this world. Let one of those bright spots be you. But the only way you can do that is if you know what God has to say to you. And let me tell you something else. The word of God needs to be important to you. In Deuteronomy chapter 32, Moses is just about to die. He has spent 30 days on and off giving them different instruction from God, and then he gives them a final bit of instruction, both from the law of the Lord, and then he has it put into words of a song so they can memorize it. And then he said this, take to heart, this is. Deuteronomy 32 verse 46. Take to heart all the words I've solemnly declared to you this day so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. And listen to this. They are not just idle words for you. They are your life. God's word is your life. Have you been making it so? Or have you been dabbling? If you've been dabbling, welcome to the club. The question is now, what will you do about it? Will today become the day that you turn your life around for God? Will today be the day that you become a daily Bible reader? And as you read his words that are your life, and you start to apply them to your life, Are you ready for this day to be the day that will change your life and the lives of all those around you for the better? Are you ready to ensure by the grace of God and by the sacrifice of Christ that when you kneel before God on Judgment Day, that you are going to hear the words, well done, or are you going to continue going the way you've always gone? Are you going to risk everything for Judgment Day? and just hope against hope that God isn't serious when he tells us to do our best to correctly handle the Word of Truth. Have you been correctly, have you been doing your best to correctly handle the Word of Truth? If the answer is no, well here's another club to welcome you to. We've all done that, but now let's do something to correct that. The reading of God's word will give you hope, it will give you joy, it will give you information as how to proceed in some of the most difficult situations you will ever find yourself in. But until you are inspired to act upon this command, to do your best to correctly handle the word of God, you will never do it. And you won't believe it when Jesus said, man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And that's a shame to not believe these because these are some of the greatest truths ever spoken. I want to say again, it will change your life. Are you ready for a change for the better? Today is the day that you become a daily Bible reader and begin to find out what you need to do to give your life completely over to God and to Christ. They are worth it. They consider you what you worth it because they have given everything for you to have that opportunity. Take it. and then get prepared to enjoy life to a fullness that you perhaps never believe dreamed was even possible. Today is the day you become a daily Bible reader if you're inspired to do this most important action. That's all for today. I hope it gives you something to think about. Until next time, I pray that God will richly bless your efforts as you seek to serve Him to the very best of your ability.