Cultivate prompt, exact, unquestioning, joyous obedience to every command that it is evident from its context applies to you. Be on the lookout for new orders from your King. Blessing lies in the direction of obedience to them. God’s commands are but sign-boards that mark the road to present success and blessedness and to eternal glory.
(5) Studying the Bible as the Word of God involves studying it as His own voice speaking directly to you. When you open the Bible to study realize that you have come into the very presence of God and that now He is going to speak to you. Realize that it is God who is talking to you as much as if you saw Him standing there. Say to yourself, “God is now going to speak to me.” Nothing goes farther to give a freshness and gladness to Bible study than the realization that as you read God is actually talking to you. In this way Bible study becomes personal companionship with God Himself. That was a wonderful privilege that Mary had one day, of sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to His voice, but if we will study the Bible as the Word of God and as if we were in God’s very presence, then we shall enjoy the privilege of sitting at the feet of God and having Him talk to us every day. How often what would otherwise be a mere mechanical performance of a duty would become a wonderfully joyous privilege if one would say as he opens the Bible, “Now God, my Father, is going to speak to me.” Oftentimes it helps us to a realization of the presence of God to read the Bible on our knees. The Bible became in some measure a new book to me when I took to reading it on my knees.
7. _Study the Bible prayerfully._ God, who is the author of the Bible, is willing to act as interpreter of it. He does so when you ask Him to. The one who prays with earnestness and faith the Psalmist’s prayer, “Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law” (Ps. 119: 18) will get his eyes opened to see new beauties and wonders in the Word of God that he never dreamed of before. Be very definite about this. Each time you open the Bible to study it, even though it is but for a few minutes, ask God to give you an open and discerning eye, and expect Him to do it. Every time you come to a difficulty in the Bible, lay it before God and ask an explanation and expect it. How often we think as we puzzle over hard passages, “Oh, if I only had some great Bible teacher here to explain this to me!” God is always present. He understands the Bible better than any human teacher. Take your difficulty to Him and ask Him to explain it. Jesus said, “When He the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall guide you into all the truth” (John 16: 13, R. V.). It is the privilege of the humblest believer in Christ to have the Holy Spirit for his guide in his study of the Word. I have known many very humble people, people with almost no education, who got more out of their Bible study than most of the great theological teachers that I have known; simply because they had learned that it was their privilege to have the Holy Spirit for their teacher as they studied the Bible. Commentaries on the Bible are oftentimes of great value, but one will learn more of real value from the Bible by having the Holy Spirit for his teacher when he studies his Bible than he will from all the commentaries that were ever published.
8. _Improve spare moments for Bible study._ In almost every man’s life many minutes each day are lost, while waiting for meals, riding on trains, going from place to place in street-cars and so forth. Carry a pocket Bible or Testament with you and save these golden moments by putting them to the very best use, listening to the voice of God.
9. _Store away the Scripture in your mind and heart._ It will keep you from sin (Ps. 119: 11, R. V.); from false doctrine (Acts 20: 29, 30, 32; 2 Tim. 3: 13-15). It will fill your heart with joy (Jer. 15: 16); and peace (Ps. 85: 8). It will give you victory over the evil one (1 John 2: 14); it will give you power in prayer (John 15: 7); it will make you wiser than the aged and your enemies (Ps. 119: 98, 100, 130); it will make you “complete, furnished completely unto every good work” (2 Tim. 3: 16, 17, R. V.). Try it. Do not memorize at random but memorize Scripture in a connected way; memorize texts bearing on various subjects in proper order; memorize by chapter and verse that you may know where to put your finger on the text if any one disputes it. You should have a good Bible for your study. One of the best is “The Oxford Two Version Bible, Workers’ Edition.”