Read your Bible: Reason #2 - God's Word generates spiritual life.

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How much do you know about spiritual biology?  Consider, for a moment, the beginning of spiritual life.  You are not born into this world alive spiritually.  Believe it or not all of us are born dead.  If someone took your pulse for vital signs of spiritual life you would be declared spiritually dead.  The Bible declares in Ephesians 2:1 – “And you were dead in trespasses and sins” (2:1; see also Eph. 4:18, 5:14; John 5:21; 1 John 3:14).  If we are all born dead, then how are we made alive spiritually?  What generates spiritual life in someone who is already physically alive?  Perhaps you have heard the term “born again;” that is what this term signifies.  You may be born physically; however, you must be born spiritually.


Being born again refers to God gifting you with spiritual life by faith in Jesus Christ.  All those who have trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins are born again and will live forever.  So, how is someone made alive spiritually?  How does someone come to that faith?  Several passages give us insight into spiritual biology.  One very clear one is in the little letter of 1 Peter.

 

“For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).

 

Peter states in this passage that there is an amazing relationship between the Bible and the process of spiritual birth.  Did you pick it up when reading verse 23 above?  How are we born again? How does this transpire?  We are born spiritually by the spiritual seed of the Word of God being sown in our heart. God’s Word is the seed that generates us… or you could say–regenerates us.


Another passage from the Bible that clearly teaches this is Romans 10:9-17.  Paul describes the necessity for someone to share the Gospel (preach), in order for someone to hear the Gospel, in order for someone to come to faith in the Gospel.  He concludes with this statement:

 

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

 

God’s Word brings us to faith in the Gospel.  Someone is not born again until they believe that Jesus has died for their sins, rose again for their eternal life.  But the faith to believe that is actually brought about as the Holy Spirit uses His weapon – the Word of God.  Faith comes through the hearing of the Word of God.  As someone exposes their eyes and ears to the spiritual Words of Christ in the Bible, they are actually sowing spiritual seed upon their inner person.  That spiritual seed generates the faith to latch on to those words in total faith.


What an incentive to read the Bible!  It is essential to any spiritual life at all.  Applications to this truth in church ministry are so numerous I have a hard time stopping with this one individual application.  But I’ll let God work on your heart about all of those.  Instead, let me just point to the obvious.  The Word of God is essential to the beginning of every person’s spiritual life.  So read God’s Word, my friend.  Read the Bible!  And take it upon yourself to encourage others to do the same.  Other efforts at “spiritual reformation” are useless if they do not start at this first step.

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