BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

I know. That’s why we need to spend time in God’s Word! We need it to counteract all the negativity we’re seeing and hearing around us. We need it to overcome all the bad news and lies of the devil we’re being told. Now, more than ever, we need it to remind us that, no matter how bad things might get in this world, God’s will for us is always going to be good. The Bible confirms it time and again. It says: • “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 145:9). • “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him” (Psalm 103:17). • “The Lord…daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation” (Psalm 68:19). • “As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). No question about it: Our God is a good God! He’s so lovely and kind and full of mercy, we can’t wrap our natural minds around it. The only way we can even begin to see the magnitude of His goodness is by letting Him speak to us through His Word by the voice of the Holy Spirit. I’ll be forever grateful that our God is a speaking God, won’t you? Listening to someone talk is how you get to know them. If you have friends who don’t say much, you can’t develop a very good relationship with them. Good relationships require communication. If you’re a wife, that’s how you get to know the man you’ve married. If you’re a husband, that’s how you get to know your wife. You communicate with each other. You spend time together. In much the same way, if you want to get to know God, you have to spend time with Him in His Word. If you want to experience all the good things He’s prepared for you, you have to communicate with Him about them. You have to hear what He has said to you in the Scriptures and treasure His words in your heart, and then speak those words with your mouth to put them to work! It takes faith to receive from God, and Romans 10:17 says, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” But faith doesn’t come to you as a result of the Word I’ve heard. Faith comes to you as a result of the Word you hear and do. It comes because you’ve followed the instructions in Proverbs 4:20-23: “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Taking the First Step Notice, according to those verses, the first step to investing in the Word is this: You attend to it. That means you “pay attention” to it. You focus on it. You don’t give all your attention to the newspaper. You don’t spend all your time watching television and listening to what other people are saying. You put the Word first place in your life. How exactly do you go about that? Start by making the Word your final authority. Determine that whatever you see there, that’s the way it is. What God says goes. Don’t try to make His Word fit with what you’ve experienced in the past or what you’ve been taught. Believe God’s Word without qualification. When you see in the Scriptures that God’s tender mercies are over you, believe it! Put your faith in God’s mercy to cause you to succeed in whatever you do. The second thing you must do to put the Word first place in your life, is to plan your schedule around it. Make time in the Word your top priority every day. Granted, this will take a lot of determination. Like all of us, you have a lot of other things competing for your time. So if you’re going to fellowship with God in the Word on a daily basis, you can’t be haphazard about it. You have to be disciplined and committed. You also have to be ready to fight off the attacks of the devil. He’ll always encourage you to do anything with your time except spend it in the Word. The devil doesn’t want you in the Word because it makes you free from his dominion. It equips you to keep him under your feet. Satan would rather you do good deeds—take potato salad to the church picnic, bake cakes for the bake sale or whatever—than spend time in the Word because, although those are nice things to do, they won’t guarantee you victory. They won’t make you an overcomer. The Word of God will! “But Gloria, I’m a businessman. I just don’t have time for the Word.” 28 : BVOV

• Cover