“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” Charlie “Tremendous” Jones said this in his book, “Life Is Tremendous.”
If Charlie is right, then what are the most important books we should read and who are the most important people we should meet and learn from?
I wasn’t much of a reader earlier in life. To be honest, I just didn’t see the value in reading books. Maybe it was partly because I grew up in a small, rural community where most people worked manual labor jobs to earn a living. Even though I decided to go to college to study for youth ministry I still didn’t see great value in reading. Of course, I would read my Bible and I would read for classes but looking back I can see that most of my choices to read were directly connected to an “obligation” to read… not a desire to really grow.
One day I came face to face with a deficiency in my life and for some reason it shook me to the core. It happened while I was a college student. I had signed up to sell books and Bibles door to door for The Varsity Company which at the time was a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville, Tennessee. I was in “sales school” for five days in Nashville with hundreds of other students from all over America.
All the students gathered in the big conference hall and found our seats to prepare to listen as Joe Martin, our sales and marketing trainer opened up the morning session. He started by asking, “How many of you read the assignment I gave last night?” If the silence from these college students was a sign of the guilty, then we were guilty enough to fill up every jail in Tennessee that morning! I don’t remember everything Joe Martin said for the next several minutes but I do remember how I felt by the time he was finished. The message I did get… and I got it loud and clear… is that I was never going to change, I was never going to grow, I was never going to even come close to the potential God intended for my life if I did not take seriously the life-changing impact of reading.
I determined by the time Joe was finished with his “Come To Jesus” sermon about our slothfulness that if he ever asked again… I would be prepared to say yes, I am reading. We were supposed to be reading “Life Is Tremendous,” by Charlie Jones and I went back to my room and read the entire book that same day. It was on that day that Charlie taught me this, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
So, if reading can change a person so dramatically… imagine how much more enriched our life would be if we read the Bible… the most powerful book ever written?
So here’s my challenge to you… begin to read with a desire to grow! This is different than reading out of obligation to complete an assignment. And make reading the Bible the top priority.
Here Are 9 Benefits of Reading The Bible
From Psalm 119
1. Victory Over Sin In Your Life
* Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Verse 11
* Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously. Verse 29
* I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. Verse 101
2. Cleansing From Sin
* Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Verse 9
3. More Joy
*I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. Verse 14
*I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word. Verse 16
4. Wisdom and Direction
*Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. Verse 24
*Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Verse 34
*I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. Verse 99
5. You Will Be Revived… Rejuvenated
*Consider how I love thy precepts: quicken me, O Lord, according to thy lovingkindness. Verse 159
*I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O Lord, according unto thy word. Verse 107
6. Renewed Strength
*Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually. Verse 117
*My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word. Verse 28
7. You Will Experience Liberty and Freedom
*And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts. Verse 45
8. Less Shame and Embarrassment
*I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. Verse 46
*Let my heart be sound in thy statutes; that I be not ashamed. Verse 80
*Uphold me according unto thy word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Verse 116
9. Comfort in Affliction
*This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me. Verse 50
*I remembered thy judgments of old, O Lord; and have comforted myself. Verse 52
*Consider mine affliction, and deliver me: for I do not forget thy law. Verse 153
I was impressed the first time I read David’s plea in Psalm 51:10. It tells me that he sometimes came face to face with his own inadequacies and his own lack of desire to really change and grow. If you have lost the desire… the real hunger and thirst to know God more… why not pause right now and ask Him to renew a spirit of hunger and thirst for Him?
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10
