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Throughout Christian history, people have longed to be able to read the Bible for themselves, and many have gone through much trouble to get hold of one. But now most people can get the Bible in their own language and usually in several versions. It's freely available on the internet, and even on smart phones. However, many people, including born again Christians, aren't actually doing much of reading it, studying it and meditating on it! Many factors seem to be contributing to this. Parts of the Bible, especially some books of the Old Testament, are not easy to understand without a proper background. Some people don't seem to understand the relevance of many parts of the Bible to modern life. There are truths hidden in the Bible that can be found only if we dig deep. But the modern man doesn't seem to have the time or inclination to do that. And, of course, those who are not born again aren't really able to make much sense of what they read (Jn.3:3).

But here is a treasure God has placed in our hands, which is able to reveal God, His nature, His ways, the sordid history of man and what God has done to redeem us, instructions for our daily life, and which provides us a means to communicate with God Himself (2Ti.3:16,17).

The modern man is impatient, partly because he has very little time in his hands in which he is expected to accomplish a variety of tasks and fulfil many responsibilities. So he usually listens to himself for ideas, or accepts ideas that are thrown at him through the media. He swallows those ideas especially when he knows they have come from celebrities or 'great' persons, because he doesn't have the time to check if they are correct. If he is a church going man, he thinks whatever the pastor says is enough for him.

But the spirit of the times is such that there is great pressure on people from all around to turn away from God, and one of the things it causes people to do is to neglect the Bible. If they accept this, perhaps without knowing what is happening to them, they have got cut off from a fountain of life. When they find themselves in difficult situations, they find they have no strength to stand, because they haven't been feeding on the milk of God's word (1Pe.2:2).

Godly Christians through the centuries have spent much time with the word of God, meditating on it and having fellowship with God who inspired it. They have chosen to trust in what the Bible says even when 'great' people of the world opposed them. They have held the Bible as their ultimate authority for life, and rejected ideas and philosophies that went against it. Then they grew from faith to faith, received grace upon grace, and became godly with every day.

Let's not fool ourselves to think that we can now manage with just snippets each day or second hand devotions. Let's submit ourselves to the authority of the word of God, respect it and honour it. Let's draw on the strength God has prepared for us in our times of need.