The Bible: A Firm Foundation

According to the Barna Group, which is a group that keeps track of the role of faith in America over the years, here is what they found concerning teenagers (ages 13-17) in 2016:

43% of teens read their Bible 3-4x a year

25% of teens read their Bible at least once a week

Only 3% report daily reading

11% report reading once a week

11% report reading several times per week

10% of students only read their Bible once a month

10% read it 3-4x per year

BUT 92% of teens, whether they believe it to be literally, symbolically, or a mixture of both, believe that the Bible is the literal and inspired Word of God

So out of 52 weeks in a year (365 days), here is the breakdown:

If you read your Bible 3-4x a year, you are only reading for 3-4 days out of 365

If you read your Bible once a week, that is 52 times out of 365 days. That is only 14% of your year spent in the Word of God. That isn’t even a quarter of your time.

The most staggering statistic included in all this is that almost all 13-17 year olds questioned believed the Bible to be the literal and inspired truth of God.

So the question is: If we really believe the Bible to be God’s inspired and literal truth to us, why don’t we value it more with our time?

This is a loaded question, but I believe to sum up the answer, it would be this: We are too full of everything else that God’s Word is either getting the leftovers of us or nothing from us at all.

It is possible to be full of everything else and not have enough room for Jesus. Jesus said it Himself when speaking to His disciples about following Him…

Matthew 16:26 “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?”

“Soul” here means the life source of a person

The fact is that you can give yourself to everything else this world has to offer and lose your soul (or your life) in the process.

Why? Because you gave yourself over to the wrong thing. You built on the wrong foundation. In the end, what matters is that you built your life on a sure foundation. This time in life is just but a blink in the scope of eternity.

To “lose” here means to suffer loss, but in the action of forfeiting, mean WE would be responsible for giving it up, not someone else.

Remember: The foundation we build on today is the strength we will stand in tomorrow.

Jesus’ question, “Is anything worth more than your soul?”, causes us to reflect on what truly matters.

There is a lot of things that beg and pull for our attention in this life but the question is: Have you built your life on Jesus or have you built your life on other things?

Acts 17:1–5 “Paul and Silas then traveled through the towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was Paul’s custom, he went to the synagogue service, and for three Sabbaths in a row he used the Scriptures to reason with the people. He explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead. He said, “This Jesus I’m telling you about is the Messiah.” Some of the Jews who listened were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with many God-fearing Greek men and quite a few prominent women. But some of the Jews were jealous, so they gathered some troublemakers from the marketplace to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag them out to the crowd.”

Acts 17:10–12 “That very night the believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. As a result, many Jews believed, as did many of the prominent Greek women and men.”

The Jews in Thessalonica and the Jews of Berea responded very differently to the Truth.

Though some believed in Thessalonica, including Greeks, other Jews responded by rioting and trying to attack Paul and Silas. They even attacked another man who allowed Paul and Silas to stay there.

The very next night Paul and Silas start teaching in Berea and it says that these were “more open-minded than those in Thessalonica.”

This meant that they were open, ready, and hungry for the revelation of the Word of God. They were HUNGRY.

What is the difference? The Jews in Thessalonica were full of themselves. They were worried about how the Truth would cause them to lose their power and control. Anything that opposed this power and control was an enemy to them.

The Berean Jews weren’t full though. They were open-minded, they were looking for something.

If we are not careful, we can become just like the Jews in Thessalonica toward the Word of God.

We may not cause a riot and try to beat people up, but we can become so full of ourselves that we do not give God’s Word full access to and over our lives. We can become so resistant to the changes that God’s Word asks us to make that we completely cut the Word out from our lives.

What we don’t fill up with God’s Word, the enemy will find a way to occupy.

Luke 11:24–26 ““When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and in order. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before.””

This is not saying that if you don’t read you Bible that you are going to get possessed by a demon

See, in a moment with the Word of God and an encounter in God’s presence, can change everything.

Once the enemy is evicted from territory in your life, don’t be surprised if he comes back to see if you have fortified yourself.

In this case, the enemy saw that the person had a clean house with nothing in it. It was in order, but it wasn’t in working order.

Romans 8:2–3 “And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.”

Romans 8:12–13 “Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.”

You are not saved by works, you are saved by grace through faith for works.

Once we get saved, there is work to do.

Jesus didn’t just die to give you His righteousness and His Holy Spirit to just sit around till He comes. Jesus gave you those things to walk through the journey of life with Him and continue to grow and change in Him.

And we cannot grow and change in Him WITHOUT the Bible, The Word of God being the foundation for where we hear from and learn about what God wants us to do.

Yes, God can speak through dreams.

Yes, God can speak through people.

Yes, God can speak directly to you in your thought.

BUT everyone of those things is subject to the “logos” (written) Word of God.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”

Anything big God wants us to accomplish in our lives has to be filtered through His Word, founded in His Word, and sustained through His Word.

The Bible is our life-line to everything in God.

Our relationship with Him begins here.

Our communication with Him begins here.

Our life begins with Him here.

This is God’s desire for you:

Psalm 1:1–3 “Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.”

“Delight” means to find joy, pleasure in something, to deem it precious and worth pursuit

We need to pray for DELIGHT to come back in us for God’s Word again.