Staying in God's inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word

“The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, But the prayer of the upright is His delight” (Proverbs 15:8, NKJV)

I can’t remember the last time I read the Bible cover to cover, though I’ve studied certain sections more often. I bought my MacArthur Study Bible before I became a Christian. My younger sister, saved years before I was, prodded me to at least own a good Bible, even in my unrepentant state. I didn’t start reading it until a year later. When I met John MacArthur, I told him how I came to own it.

Once I began to learn about God and His people, His nature and His promises, His delight and His anger, His forgiveness and His mercy, I was in awe. I’d read Bible passages and listened to sermons before, but those experiences didn’t come close to actually reading the whole book word for word, envisioning the redemptive accounts.

I was hungry for the Word after I became a Christian around 16 years ago. I attended Bible studies at church and at work. Though I worked for a Democratic U.S. senator at the time, I attended a weekly Bible study in the late Sen. Jesse Helms’ office (I was also moving toward the political right) and a Bible study held by former Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie every Friday.

What happened to that hunger? Reading through the Bible again and studying it are on my long to-do list. “Life happens” isn’t a good excuse for neglecting it. Is it salvation complacency? Laziness? I neglect prayer too often these days as well, even knowing that it pleases God when we pray.

Becoming spiritually complacent or neglectful is dangerous, especially now. With spiritual warfare surrounding us, we need to stay in the Word and in prayer. I hope I don’t sound like a conspiracy nut when I say that the government-media complex will become increasingly oppressive in the days ahead. Speak out publicly against perversion and you might lose your job. Exercise your religious freedom, supposedly guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, and the government might fine your business into bankruptcy.

Is the world becoming less decent, or was it always so? False teachers are old news, but it’s astounding that some people who call themselves Christians support abortion and don’t believe homosexual behavior is a sin. What about adultery, lying, stealing, and murdering? Have Christians been wrong about those, too?

As God speaks to us through Scripture, we understand that neither His nature nor ours changes. We’re sinners through and through, and as societal stigma disappears and moral barriers fall, we descend further into depravity. Christ is our salvation, and reading, studying, and applying the Bible provide an anchor to keep us spiritually moored.

The Apostle Paul assures us, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”