I had a mind-blowing encounter with the Bible this morning—how you can, too
ChatGPTI admit, my daily Bible reading is often just short and sweet. God meets me in his Word, but it's not like I spend an hour studying and memorizing it.
These days, I'm doing well to stay exposed to it.
This morning, however, it felt like my very soul was exposed.
I decided to crack open the book of John. I'd read it many times before. I wasn't expecting anything new. (Do you have minimal expectations when you read the Bible, too?)
I didn't make it very far—just the first 18 verses, which comprise the introduction. I was using my wife's Bible and saw many notes she'd made over the years.
As I went, I marveled. Because space is short here, I'll just give you just one example of how this happened for me.
The book starts this way:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning" (Jn. 1:1-2, NIV 1984).
I wondered how anyone could read this and not see that Jesus was God! I thought of all the religions of the world that respect him, but think he was just a man. Some of them even try to use the Bible to make their case. They'd have to ignore these two verses.
The more I walked through the first page of John, the more light bulbs kept exploding above me. Amazing insights from the Spirit kept flooding my mind.
The simple words on the page overwhelmed me. They filled my head with such force and fullness that … I had to stop.
It was too much.
I stopped reading and went quiet. I felt a sense of awe. Ironically, the Word I had just read linked itself to the presence of Christ himself. I couldn't fully grasp that.
I look forward to the next experience like this. It may not be right away, but do you know how I'm going to make it happen again? There's one thing I'm going to do.
It's something you can do, too.
It's simple: I'm just going to read the Bible. Often. With an open heart. With faith.
If you do, too, the Lord will reveal himself to you.
Get ready to be overwhelmed.
Tom Harper
Founder, BiblicalLeadership.com
LinkedIn profile | Books
 | Tom Harper is publisher of BiblicalLeadership.com and executive chairman of Networld Media Group, a business-to-business publisher and event producer. He has written five books, including Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership (DeepWater Books, 2019) as well as the Christian business fable Through Colored Glasses and its sequel Inner Threat (DeepWater, 2022). Learn More » |
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