Why reading the Bible alone is not enough

Awhile back, I spent some time with a woman who was struggling. In a land far across the sea, she was desperate for truth, eager for help, and she reached out.

In her lovely accent, she told me that life felt like a wilderness. She was laboring (I could hear it) under a great load of guilt. Feeling like she *should* read her Bible. She *should* be praying. She *should* do this and *should* do that, but could not seem, somehow, to muster the will for all the doing.

That fear. It was oh-so-familiar to this formerly Doing Girl. And that guilt…

Underneath it all, at the bottom, she was terrified that she would not, somehow, stay a Christian if she didn’t keep on with the doing. That God would be displeased, and her heart would turn away from Him. The chains of fear were oppressive.

Feeling her desperation and her need for relief, I found myself laboring along with her. Coming alongside, doing what I could to lift her load. Then she said this: “People say that reading the Bible is like eating, and prayer is like drinking. I’m afraid that if I’m not doing these things, I’ll…” I’ll fall away. I won’t want Him. He (and here it was) won’t want me.

In that small and still Voice I’ve come to know, I knew at once what to give her. “Jesus said that He IS the bread of life. He IS the living water, and so if you have Jesus, you HAVE the bread and the water.” So it’s okay to rest. You are safe.

And from across the sea, I heard her sweet voice, laced with a real relief, “That’s the best answer anyone’s ever given me.”

Today, I’m thinking how you can read the Bible for years and for years. You can sit through countless Bible studies. You can memorize whole chapters at a time and still, you can come up empty and cold. Still hung’ring, still starving. Still powerless.

If the Christ of the Bible doesn’t “get into” you, it doesn’t matter. If you read all about Him, but don’t really know Him, nothing changes.

If you are not truly “in Christ” and Christ fully “in you,” you’ll come up empty. Even if you’re reading His book every day.

When I was around 10 to 12 years of age, I prayed the prayer and asked Him to come in. For decades, I practiced the so-called Christian disciplines, and mostly, I was filled with fear. I simply did not know the God of the Bible like I do today. Just reading it wasn’t enough. I needed to KNOW Him, and I needed to know that I knew Him.

Now (thank God), I absolutely know Him, and I know that I know that I do. It’s sweet. Moment by moment, I live in the keenest awareness of His presence, of His power-full in-dwelling. I’m abiding in Him. He’s abiding in me, and Life all eternal flows through me.

The simplicity of this living is astounding. It’s freeing. The God of the Bible had me all along, and now I truly know that He’s mine.

I in Him, He in me. All’s grace.

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them (Jn. 7:38).”