Application is the Key to Happiness
92% of American families own a Bible. The average is 3 Bibles per family. It is reported that 59% of Americans occasionally read one of those Bibles. It would be a safe guess that most of the families in Leslie own a Bible and have one in their home. The question is not “Do I own a Bible?” Or is it “Do I read the Bible?” The true question becomes “Do I apply the Bible to my life?”
The Bible says a little about this in James 1:22 – 25: 22 Do what God’s teaching says; when you only listen and do nothing, you are fooling yourselves. 23 Those who hear God’s teaching and do nothing are like people who look at themselves in a mirror. 24 They see their faces and then go away and quickly forget what they looked like. 25 But the truly happy people are those who carefully study God’s perfect law that makes people free, and they continue to study it. They do not forget what they heard, but they obey what God’s teaching says. Those who do this will be made happy.
I like to paint. I have found one thing to be true about painting and the Bible. If I’m going to paint I can’t just put a tube of paint and brush next to a canvas and expect anything to happen. If you don’t take the paint out of the tube and spread it on the canvas a picture will never appear. The canvas will not change until you apply paint on to it. It is not enough to own paint you have got to use it for it to change anything.
It is the same with the Bible. Having one on the shelf will not change your life. You must pull the Bible down and read it and then do what it says. You must be willing to change your life to match up to God’s commands and principles from the Bible. It is only when you apply the Bible that the picture of your life is changed into something beautiful. Happiness in life is found within the pages of our Bibles. It just requires that we do what it says and begin to let it shape our lives into what God sees in each of us.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself when you read your Bible:
- Is there a process that I should follow?
- Is there a problem that I need to solve?
- Is there a promise I need to believe in?
- Is there a prayer I need to pray?
- Is there a principle I should share?