The Basics Of Faithful Bible Reading - Part 3: Validation Of Life - C. Ross Duncan

The Basics Of Faithful Bible Reading
Part 3: Validation Of Life
​C. Ross Duncan

​Welcome to installment 3 of The Basics of Faithful Bible Reading. This article will help us continue to notice in our lives individually and in daily life practically, why reading God’s Word is vital and valuable to us as believers. We know that God’s Word is read by a vast number of believers across the globe. Still, I am afraid that most of us do not open the Bible for purposes that honor God in how it becomes applicable to our daily lives, and therefore do not experience its life-changing effects.

​I would like to help us understand this by showing us the reality of a believer’s position and why we can rest in Christ and find His comfort through His Word and its validation of our lives. While true regenerate believers struggle at times to grasp what the Bible says in a particular situation and how it applies to today, some who claim to be believers seem to open it gladly, read a few verses, apply it to themselves immediately, and go on about their day. 

How in the world can that happen? Why do some people walk around with their chin up, claiming they are Christians while others often seem so downcast? Well, the reality is that possibly the one downcast reads the Bible through a Biblical lens, while the other doesn’t.

What I am not saying is that a true regenerate believer is always discouraged and downcast. They shouldn’t be. Nor am I saying that the one that reads and goes on about their day is never discontent. But even though discontentment may reside in the heart of both, it is not what we see immediately on the surface. We cannot immediately judge one’s spiritual state merely by noticing a possible need for an outward attitude adjustment.

Our validation comes from the Word of God, making more sure the peace we experience as a child of God. With God, we know all things work for the good of those who love Him and are those called according to His purpose. -(Rom. 8:28; ESV.

Without the Word of God, we would not be able to grasp a mere human understanding of such a reality. God is entirely incomparable to humankind due to Him being altogether otherly or set apart. Separate from sinful man.

Since this is an experience that we have individually as children of God, we can quickly remember a vast amount of Scripture that helps us see and know this truth. But what I desire to get at here is the fact that we do indeed need God’s Word, the Bible!

Imagine there being people we do not know approaching us and telling us their own experiences of God without God’s Word. It would be like a free-for-all with whatever you want to say God told you or showed you by your insight alone, thinking it becomes a good experience between you and God. The reality is that the canon of Scripture is closed. If the Bible doesn’t say it, God didn’t say it! 

Unfortunately, this is quite evident amongst many Christian circles today. Many will pray with a sort of intuition by squeezing their eyes together tightly, clenching their hands firmly, and say “Jesus” several times, thinking it does something for God that He would deliver some prophetic word or story that is somehow “only to them.” It then becomes evident that they do not read the Bible with the correct hermeneutic, and it is if there is no consideration of God, a form of blasphemy. 

With that said, I would like to give us Scripture for life to go away from here with and meditate upon as we desire to know Christ our Redeemer, our position on this earth, and our position in Him. 

May Scripture, much more than my own thoughts and writing, be that which truly validates you as belonging to God fully as His own! For much writing here will require of you much reading there! I will leave you with time now to read the Bible!

It is “In Him that we live, and move, and have our being”. -Acts 17:28; ESV.

He made us in His image and He delights in us. – Genesis 1:27 ; Zephaniah 3:17. He loves us and welcomes us even when we have rebelled severely against Him. – Luke 15:11-32. God is for us who are His. Not against us. – Romans 8:31. His will for you is that you would grow in Holiness! - 1 Peter 1. He has given you unique gifts, talents, and strengths. –Romans 12:6.

Christian, read God’s Word! Many good books we consider often but do we treasure God’s Word to us as His most gracious gift, His only Son?

​“Read many good books, but live in the Bible” -Charles H. Spurgeon

​May grace and peace be yours in Christ Jesus as you pray and consider God who has shown us so great a love by validating us by saving us from condemnation and raising us to newness of life in His Son!

C. Ross Duncan

​C. Ross Duncan lives in Maryville, Tennessee with his wife Meghan and their 3 boys. Ross loves to write and study the Bible and works at a local church in his town. By His Grace is honored to provide this platform for Ross to grow in his writing on biblical and theological matters.