IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, STUDY YOUR BIBLE

By Akin Ojumu

There’s nothing more dangerous to a believer than to be ignorant of God’s Word. A Believer uninformed of the written Word of God is courting a disaster of damnable proportions. It’s inconceivable how anyone can live the Christian life victoriously by choosing to remain unlearned in Scripture.

Yet, Christian assemblies everywhere are packed full of people who come and go, making the motions, but are totally clueless about what the Bible says. To the extent that these Church goers have any knowledge of Scripture at all, it’s limited to what they heard spoken by the preacher during a sermon.

Very often you hear them parrot their daddy in the Lord, believing the daddy can’t be wrong. To them, self-study is overrated, it seems. Why subject yourself to the grueling task of studying the Bible when you can come to church and have it fed to you from the pulpit.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” (Hosea 4:6).

Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut to eternal life. I hate to break it to those who think otherwise. As long as Believers fail to give due diligence to personal study of God’s Word, they’ll remain ignorant of God’s will and naive about His purpose. This ignorance will drive them to embrace all sorts of wacky ideas spun by men and women who are nothing but spokespersons and mouthpieces for demons.

Those who are thus fed with erroneous doctrines are bound to go about stumbling blindly in the dark. They unwittingly turn themselves into prey for ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing. Because they don’t know what the Bible says, they become easy pickings for exploitations by unscrupulous men.

Characteristically, they stagger along like junkies looking for the next fix. Day by day, they flounder through life from one powerful man of God to the other, chasing after extraordinary miracles. Driven by the false belief that the answer to their prayer is in the next miracle crusade, they become permanent fixtures at the Holy Ghost nights and are regulars at all sorts of virtual prayer meetings.

To and fro they run from one white garment church to no-garment church in pursuit of supernatural visitation. Yet, the only visitation they ever experience is confusion, disappointment, and the draining of their meagre resources.

Alas! At no other time in its history, has the Church faced this level of Satanic onslaught. What makes this era particularly more dangerous than other previous attacks by the forces of darkness, is the fact that the Body of Christ oblivious of the real enemy and his strategy.

Whereas the fiercest assault on the Christian faith is emanating from inside the Church, a vast majority of Christians are looking for the enemy on the outside. Because they are unaware of the extreme damage being done to the faith from inside the Church, many Believers go about wrapped in self-delusion thinking their congregation is on fire for God. As the erroneous doctrines and false teachings proliferate in the Church, they go totally undetected because everybody believes them to be the truth.

In this age of deception, when the spirits of lies and falsehoods have fanned out all over the world, only those who have a proper understanding of Scripture will survive. The only levee there is against the deluge of falsehood is sound knowledge of God’s Word. Those who fail to know what the Bible says will continue to be misled. All those who mishandle the Word of God will stand covered in shame on the Great Day of Judgement.

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15).

It’s for this reason that I have committed myself to study the Bible on my own. When I study, the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth to me. And it’s the truth that I know and do that makes me free.