When I became a Christian, a follower still learning about God and very new to the faith which had drawn me to Him, I didn’t know where to begin. I prayed and I fasted and one day I heard His voice telling me, “Why not start at the beginning?”. So every year since then I have studied the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and then sometimes I will take a small break. But when I am not studying His Word I feel like someone who has no food or water, so I begin again at the book of Genesis. I have been doing this for over a decade and truthfully the only books that I still have trouble with are Numbers and Leviticus. They are very repetitive and boring because they are more instructional than historical. These books are the instructions for the priests for performing their duties.
Why am I writing this today? Because every Christian needs to know where to begin their walk with God. The New Testament is a good place to start but Jesus referenced the Old Testament because that was the only Scriptures that were available to those that He called to be His followers at the time. So, we need to read it as well because it was important to Him and because the Old and the New Testaments compliment each other. The prophecies that Jesus fulfilled were from the Old Testament and pointed to His coming. The Word of God is the pure Water that we should cleanse our minds and our souls with to become more like Jesus.
When you are convicted of your own sinful nature, that is when you realize that you need to give your heart to Jesus and follow Him. Reading God’s Word is the best way to cleanse your soul of the grime and dirt that has built up over the years before you came to know Jesus because it is the Living Water. All of His Words can teach us something about ourselves and about how we can take His message to those around us. If we don’t learn from His Word how to speak and what we should speak then what we say will be from our own ideas and thoughts. The only words that carry His message and His power are those that come from the Bible, even if we paraphrase them a little bit as long as we don’t change it so that it means something different.
Even though there are many people seeking something that will give them peace in this life, many of them are not willing to follow Jesus so they can have that peace. They feel that they would have to give up too much of the life that they enjoy. It seems funny that they are dissatisfied with their life yet they don’t want to give it up or change their lifestyle to follow Jesus. Most people that I’ve spoken to about Him and what He has done for me say that there are too many rules to follow. I don’t follow rules, I follow Jesus Christ because He loved me and died for my sins long before I was born into the world. He deemed me worthy to offer the gift of salvation through my belief in Him without any help that I might bring because my efforts would avail me nothing. He already did what was needed for me to be saved…all that I brought to Him was myself when I realized that I could not do this without Him. I can follow the rules but only because I have the Holy Spirit living inside me to guide me, without Him, I wouldn’t be a Christian at all.
Please, if you are seeking Him, don’t wait too long. The church age is coming to a close when that will happen, I have no clue but I feel it won’t be very long. Your life and mine are never guaranteed and you can see on the news where many people die each day. If you feel the Holy Spirit drawing you closer to Him, please don’t wait or put it off until next week because we don’t know if we will be here next week.
The Living Message of Christ 