Do you want to empower your Bible studies and your devotional life? Learn how you can make your Bible Study and prayer life exciting and meaningful! 

IMPACT Copenhagen 2015

<p>Do you want to empower your Bible studies and your devotional life? Learn how you can make your Bible Study and prayer life exciting and meaningful! </p>

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Empower Missions

Christian Hjortland

How to Study the Bible and Empower Your Devotional Life- Part 1

Today and tomorrow we're going to take a look at something vital for our spiritual lives, for devotional life.

Well, basically, we're going to take a look at how to study the Bible and empower your devotional life.

So we have 45 minutes today and for 5 minutes tomorrow So we will see how far we reach in the things we're gonna cover today and the rest tomorrow Let's just have a short prayer as we begin again.

Father in heaven, I thank you again that we can get together and to learn more how we can get closer to you.

I pray, Lord, that you may send me your Holy Spirit, that you may speak to each heart, including my own, and that you may empower our lives.

In Jesus' name, Amen." All right, as Christians we said, The last lecture we had is a follower of Christ, obviously, and it's a special friendship.

He's our Savior, our Creator, our Sustainer, our Redeemer.

But the question is, how can we actually get to know Him better?

How can we get this into our daily lives?

And usually, or many times, maybe when we talk about things about the Word of God, I mean, it's a lot of theory, and I will try to make things practical.

And I hope that you will find some things that I share to be useful in your life, in your walk with Christ.

So we're gonna take some time to go through some different points, but first I want to just tell you that this book is not just any book.

And you're invited to open up this outstanding, amazing revelation of God's will for our lives, of God's, what can you say, the food, the spiritual food we all need.

The information here was given through the Holy Spirit to men that wrote down what God wanted them to write to us.

It's God's, It's like a big letter for us personally.

And we read that part of it is for, you know, the things that have happened in the past we can read about here is for our learning.

But the enemy is trying to get rid of God's Word, all since the beginning, also the beginning of the great controversy.

He's trying to distract us even from studying it.

He's trying to even kill us because we all want to be on God's side.

But the Bible has survived through the ages, you know, through the dark ages when it was very tough to stand up for God's Word.

It has survived, and praise the Lord for that.

But Jesus, he says, he who comes to me shall never hunger, he who believes in me shall never thirst, John 6, 35.

So what do we have to do in order to fulfill this text?

We have first we have to come, then we have to believe in Christ.

So I'm going to try to make this practical today, because this is what Christianity is about.

You're not going to be a follower of Christ if you're sitting on a chair in your own house and do nothing.

It's not about theory, it's about a transformed life when we meet Christ.

Testimony to the church, volume 6, page 393.

The Bible is God's voice speaking to us, as I said, just as surely as though we could hear it with our ears, we realize this, with that awe would we open God's Word, And with what earnestness would we search his precepts?

The reading and the contemplation of the Scriptures would be regarded as an audience with the Infinite One." Did you have an audience with the Infinite 1 this morning or today?

Have you had it through this week an audience with the infinite 1, with our Creator, with our Redeemer?

If you only understood what a privilege to have an audience with the infinite.

I mean, much greater to have an audience with the king of Denmark or whoever.

There's an audience with the 1 that has always existed.

So by opening the Scriptures, you're given an audience with the king of the universe.

Have you ever told God or asked God a question, God, why don't you speak to me?

I think we all have at 1 point, you know, God, Just talk to me, you know, I can't hear you.

If you want him to speak to you study his word.

We saw or we know Jesus He was at his father's feet As he grew up in this world, as you remember, he was studying with the scribes in the temple.

And he said, when Joseph and Mary, they lost sight of Jesus for 3 days, They didn't see Jesus.

And Jesus said this, How is it that you sought me?

Wist you not that I must be about my father's business?

Even the scribes were impressed and astonished at his teaching.

So you know, if you lose Jesus out of sight 1 day, you may have to spend 3 times to find him again.

Because we are living in a great controversy, We're living in a warfare.

So just like Mary And Joseph did lose sight of Christ for 3 days.

We may it may happen to us if we're not careful And even longer of course And we know that in education well and White writes about this, she says, in childhood, youth, and manhood, Jesus studied the Scriptures.

As a little child, he was daily at his mother's knee, taught from the scrolls of the prophets.

In his youth, the early morning and the evening twilight often found him alone in the mountainside or among the trees of the forest, spending a quiet hour in prayer and the study of God's word.

During his ministry, his intimate acquaintance with the scriptures testified to diligence in their study.

And since he gained knowledge as we may gain it, he had to learn knowledge just as we have.

His wonderful power, both mental and spiritual, is a testimony to the value of the Bible as a means of education.

He got his knowledge from the Word of God.

He got the knowledge at his father's feet.

Early morning and in the evening was found in the mountainside, spending time with God and his word.

You know, the word devotion, it can imply to, you know, time with God, taking time to worship God, but not only that, you know, it means enthusiasm, loyalty or love for something.

And in this case, it's for the Word of God.

Let's say it together, devotion empowers.

I wanted to remember that because this this is what it is all about.

Devotion, loyalty, enthusiasm about God and His Word.

Do you know how much they valued Scriptures back in Jesus' day?

You know, it could take 3 months in copying the Old Testament.

I mean this has a big price, a lot of time, I mean a lot of money, but we have to ask ourselves, do we value the scriptures today as they did?

I mean now it's so easily, I mean we have such easy access to it, we can read it on the computer, on our phone, now on our watch, you know, It's amazing.

We have so much opportunity to study God's Word, but do we do it?

Then it was back then because they had to work for it or they had to spend a lot of money to buy it.

Do we spend enough time in God's Word to be excited about it?

Or do popular media of our day, digital or hard copy, squeeze out the Word of God in our lives?

It's this time of Jesus, you know, a Hebrew child, when he was 12 years old, he was considered an adult.

He was expected to know the Bible and take responsibility to live according to it.

If you're a parent, do you teach your children the Scriptures?

And for the rest of you, Do you take individual responsibility in your life and for God and His Word?

This is a very interesting quote, I personally think.

From Christ's Obed Lesson, page 38, Elwhaite writes, in every command and in every promise of the Word of God is the power, the very life of God by which the command may be fulfilled and the promise realized.

He who by faith receives the word is receiving the very life and character of God.

That means in the very words there is power, there is life, like it says.

That means that we can claim the promises of this word.

If I read Jeremiah 33 verse 3, it says, call unto me And I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which you don't know." I can say, God, when I read this, I'm calling to you.

I can claim this promise that you will show me things, you know, that you want to reveal to me.

I can go to Hebrews 13 verse 5 where it says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

There is power in the word, but we have to reach out in faith.

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How to Study the Bible and Empower Your Devotional Life- Part 1

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