3 Ways To Make The Bible Come Alive

Here are 3 simple ways that you can make the Bible come alive for you:

Placing Your Name in the Word

What do I mean by placing your name in the Scriptures?  I mean this.  Let’s use the name Pam to see what I mean.  Read John 3:16 like this: “For God so loved Pam that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Now let’s use the name Robert or imagine putting your name in this awesome verse in Hebrews 13:5 “Never will I leave Robert, never will I forsake Robert.”  Try reading Scriptures that have “you” in them and put your own name there because when the Scriptures say “You” it means you!  Let the Word of God come alive by personalizing it because the Word of God is written to us and written for us.  That will make the way you read the Scriptures come alive and make it deeply personal because the Bible truly is God’s love letter written to mankind…and to you!  You may never read the Word of God the same again.

Read it Out Loud, Write it Out

I am way too guilty of doing this…I simply read the Word of God to myself but I don’t verbalize it. I remember in college one of my professors said that if we read something out loud, it helps us retain it better in our memory and it also gives it more impact.  I keep a notepad next to my Bible and when I find a particularly powerful verse, I also write it out.  I keep these notes and look them over from time to time and, as my professor also said, it allows whatever we wrote out to stand out better in our memories and they’ll also have a greater impact on our minds.  I download free mp3’s eBooks of the Bible and listen to these when I have to drive.  Reading the Word of God aloud or having someone else do it for me…and also writing some of the most impacting Bible verses out on paper helps these verses come alive and I am also able to recall them from memory much easier.   Read it, write it, and speak it.  Doing this with the Word of God is the Triple Crown winner of Bible study.

Pray it Back, Say it Back

The Psalms are some of the greatest chapters in all of the Bible but did you ever try reading these back to God as prayers?  Also, the many praise psalms are so worthy of worship to God and you know God delights in His own Word so why not use His own words to pray them back to Him and to praise Him with them?  Every word of God is inspired by God and I believe they will be inspiring to you if read them back to God.  Pray them back and praise them back to God.  Ever struggle with prayer? I know I do so why not pray back God’s own words to Him.  Have difficulty in praising God?  You’ll have no difficulty in knowing what to praise God for if you use the psalms to praise our Wonderful and Awesome God.

Conclusion

Personalize the Bible by putting your own name in the “You’s” in the Bible.  Read it, but read it out loud and write down some verses that have special meaning to you.  Pray the many great prayers and psalms of the Bible back to God and use the praise psalms to give Him what He is most worthy of in your private worship of Him. I believe if you do these things, the Bible will truly come alive for you because we already know that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12) so why not unleash that power?

May God richly bless you,

Pastor Jack Wellman

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Image source: CC BY-SA Carson Coots

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