First, my wife and I send you greetings from the shores of North Carolina, where we enjoyed a few days away from the busyness of college life. The excursion was much needed! I stepped away from the blog on Thursday for some family time!

Second, I am burdened today. I am burdened because of my lack of zeal for the Word of God. During my Greek class today, we considered why Christians should study New Testament Greek. It was during the subsequent discussion that my professor talked about how privileged we are as American Christians.

Christians in the United States don’t have to face physical persecution. Instead of desperately holding on to our faith in the face of death, we are able to practice it openly. On a more natural front, we are blessed with a regular supply of food, access to clean water, and a semi-stable economy. While not all of us are affluent, there aren’t very many of us who wonder where our next meal is coming from.

Furthermore, we have access to technology that Christians in other countries don’t have access to. We have myriad Bible apps, Bible software, digital libraries, and sermon archives that are able to saturate us with the Word and help us to engage in deeper study. Christians in other countries oftentimes don’t even have the Word of God in their native tongue. We, however, have it in multiple translations and most of us have more than one copy on our bookshelves.

All of this translates to an environment extremely conducive to deep, passionate Bible study. With all of the access we have to God’s Word, we should be devouring it! Engaging with it, memorizing it, meditating on it, searching it, praying it, and falling deeper in love with it!

Sadly, that’s not what I find myself doing in my spare time. Instead of studying my Greek vocab, I watch a show on Netflix. Instead of memorizing a Bible verse, I check Facebook. Instead of leading my wife in Bible study, I lead her in watching a movie.

And I know I’m not alone.

Readers, we need to recognize that as American Christians, we are some of the most blessed people in history when it comes to access to God’s Word. Christians centuries ago only dreamed of a time in history when every single believer had unlimited access to the Word of God.

We possess, in myriad forms, God’s revelation to mankind. We have in our hands on a daily basis the very mind of God Himself. Let us act like it! Let us engage in study! Let us engage in prayer through the Word! Let us devote our time, our mental capacity, our energy, to studying this wonderful book.

Don’t allow the luxury of this American life cause you to relax your spiritual discipline of reading God’s Word. Allow it to motivate you to deeper study! Start a Bible plan, memorize a passage of Scripture, pray the prayers of the great saints throughout the Bible, do something to kindle a fire in your heart for the Word of God.

And let it do its life-changing work in your heart!

I want to hear from you! How do you kindle a fire in your heart for God’s Word? How have you struggled with reading God’s Word in the past? What has helped you stay consistent in your study of God’s Word. Leave a comment below! Or hit me up on Facebook or Twitter.

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- Caleb