"I am struggling with my sin," said the penitent.

The confessor, while giving spiritual counsel, replied, "Are you reading the Bible every day?"

"Well, no. But how would that help? The problem is with me. My sin is about my weakness and ungodly willfulness."

"If the problem is in you, then your only help will come from outside of you; from the Bible. The Bible not only makes clear your sin, but it is God's resource for those who are struggling. It is the medicine for sick souls. It is the prescription for life. It is the delivery of the forgiveness of sins."

How often we dispense with the Bible and ignore its power! Our wicked tendency is to "bootstrap." We attempt to remake ourselves by an act of our own will, rather than by the power of the Word of God. How we struggle unnecessarily, because we do not avail ourselves of the power of the divine Word in our lives.

Many years ago, a homeless man came to the door of the church at which I was serving, requesting money for food that he said he intended to purchase at a local fast food restaurant. It was quite late in the afternoon and so I suggested to him that he and I could share my dinner of leftovers, which my wife had prepared for me for that evening meal. I would split the food with him. He and I could eat together. Without knowing what the food was, the man said indignantly, "I don't eat none of that [expletive]." To which I replied, "Well, I do." It is amazing the number of times people refuse to delve into the banquet of God's Word to feed on Christ. "They don't eat none of that [expletive]," because they think they have their spiritual lives under control on their own, or at least ought to. Being in the Word is literally crucial to our lives in Christ. You can't have one without the other.

Sometimes people think that if they read the book once, they needn't open it again. But they fail to understand each morsel of God's word needs to be carefully savored by consideration of it over and over again. It needs to be meditated upon and carefully digested. I don't know how many times I've been confronted by a word of God that I've read hundreds of times and yet suddenly something I had missed previously was extremely helpful to me; especially at a time of personal crisis or sorrow. The Lord's Word is new every morning. It speaks into our situation in ways we cannot predict before we pick up the book and set our hearts upon it. Listening to the divine speech can be very comforting and soothing. When a child is disturbed by a thunderstorm at night, he just needs to hear the voice of his father to give peace and to still his troubled heart. The Bible is our Father's soothing voice. Let's listen to it.