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When we gather we encourage each other to read the Bible with joy and delight. We do so because:

1. The Bible is the perfect, without error, very words of God to us that speak primarily of His glory and grace in sending His Son to live and die and rise from the dead in order to rule all creation. They instruct us to delight and boast in Him accordingly. The Bible has the supernatural ability to reveal God to us, 1 Samuel 3:21.

2. Christ died so that we might read and understand the Bible. Not delighting in the Bible is wasting His death, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6; 1 Corinthians 2:9-16.

3. The light that comes from the Bible accomplishes a multitude of great things in our lives. (All references are from Psalm 119)

a. God blesses those who obey the Bible, v. 2
b. The Bible causes us to thank God when we truly learn His commands, v. 7
c. The Word of God causes us to rejoice, v. 14
d. The Bible revives our hearts when we are depressed, v. 25
e. The Bible revives our grieving hearts, v. 28
f. The Word of God produces reverence for God, v. 38

You can make your own list by just reading the rest of the 176 verses. This chapter is chocked-full of the benefits of reading, meditating, memorizing, thinking about, and seeking the Word.

4. We are becoming biblically illiterate as a society and as a church. We have become morally lost in a sea of everyone doing what is right in their own eyes.

5. The Bible was once considered the core curriculum for educated people. It is only in the light of the One who holds all things together by the power of His word that we can gain an understanding of anything, Colossians 1:9-20. Nothing can be understood rightly apart from its connection to God!

Why then do we not delight in the Bible? Why do have this amazing capacity to be bored by supernatural things. Supernatural writings? We have been seduced by lesser glories. Our search for money, the glory of other people, the desire for other things, or as C.S. Lewis would say – mudpies, when a holiday at sea is offered, has blinded us to glory. The god of this world, Satan, hates for us to read the Bible, much less desire and love it, 2 Corinthians 4:4.

The solution is to confess the sin of finding God, the story of redemption, Christ and His cross boring – our hearts have been darkening and blinded to the true beauty and delight of the truth. We must pray that God would give us delight in Him and the Word, Psalm 119:18. In fact, pray Psalm 119. Plead with God for eyes that see, Ephesians 1:15-19. Pray that others would see the riches of their inheritance in Christ. Then, obey, even when we don’t feel like it, and search the Bible as for hidden treasure, Proverbs 2:1-4. We must apply ourselves diligently to the study of the Word until we delight in it, John 14:21. Don’t stop until you feel the delight. Live in community with those who love the Word. And then obey. Obedience to the Word will cause us to delight in it.

Never be satisfied with a mellow, uninterested, dispassionate, indifferent, lackadaisical, laconic (you get the point) attitude as applied to the Bible. It is the Word of truth. It’s the light gives light, Psalm 36:9. We delight ourselves in God when the glory of God in Christ is discovered in its pages, Luke 24:32, 44-49.

And when the Word has done its work in your life, when the light of the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ has dawned in your heart, “then go home… and tell everyone you know… the great things God has done for you… and how He had mercy on you,” Mark 5:19.