A Love Letter

Galatians 1:12
I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Those of us who have never been to Bible college or seminary or any other such thing sometimes have trouble thinking that we can study the Word for ourselves. We cannot believe that God would ever reveal anything significant to us, or that we could ever understand what He is trying to say. So, we go to church, and we go to Bible study; we listen to the preacher tell us what it means, and we listen to the teacher tell us how to apply it to our lives. We read-along and wonder at their insight and passion.
Guess what. God has that for you and me, too! Yes, you and I can go directly to God and receive instruction, just as those who teach us do. God is not a respecter of persons – He will teach the lowliest and the highest, it does not matter to Him.
What does matter is our heart. Do we have a heart to seek Him? Do we long for Him? Are we driven to the Word in that deep longing to know Him? Are we letting Him speak to us there? Or are we reading the words and checking off “read Bible” on our list of “things-to-do”?
Simply reading the Bible will not produce a change in us. If I were to send you a letter from my husband, a deeply personal and passionate letter, you may read it and think “that’s nice,” but it will not mean anything to you, because it is devoid of the relationship. And so it is with the Word. We must go to Scripture and read it as the love letter that it is. We must read it in the context of our relationship with God and see it as a tool by which He is speaking to us, personally, privately, and passionately. We do not read the Word to simply read the words on the page, but to hear from our God, and to grow in our relationship with Him, expressed through faith.
Go to the Word today and let Him speak to you there. He has written it just for you, that you would get to know Him a little more each day.