Next question, when's the last time someone asked you that face to face? Or turn it around, when's the last time you asked that of another brother in Christ? Gents, those questions can expose what's going on inside our hearts better than any MRI. I dare you to lay that question on a brother. Lay it on me.
Consider the follow-up questions that the previous Q's will naturally elicit:
- If you are not in the Bible daily, why not?
- How important is God's word to you? Why or why not?
- What keeps you from spending time with God in his word?
- Do you thirst for God and his word like a football player thirsts for water during August's two-a-days (Psalm 63:1)? If not, why not?
- When you open God's word, do the pages spring to vivid life more than a 50-inch HDTV, or do the words lie there with the appeal of shredded wheat?
- If you are reading, what are you reading? Do you remember what you read this morning? Yesterday?
- What has God taught you in his word?
- How has God manifested his love for you through his word?
- How has God revealed his glory and majesty to you through his word?
All of this because of my relationship to God through his word.
This is no mere book we hold in our hands. It is the breath of God. It is his on-going conversation with us. It is not static nor stagnant. It is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). It is Christ (John 1:1)! God forbid that we should get into the word as merely filling the square or as mowing the lawn just because it needs it. I should relish being with God in his word as much as I delight in being with my bride in our bed (Jeremiah 2:2).
If God has no place in my life, if I have no appetite for him, I am sick and I need a physician. Little will function as it should if I am malnourished of that which I need above all things. If I do not have a passionate love for God and his word, I will be ill-equipped to love my wife as I should.