Treasure-mapping The Bible

I'd like to start today's post with a little game I like to call "recite that verse." The object is to--you guessed it!--recite verses of The Bible from memory. Shall we?

Annnnddd...GO!

-John 3:16

-Jeremiah 29:11

-Romans 8:28

-Phillipians 4:13

-Proverbs 3:5

...How'd you do? Chances are, you recognized at least one of those verses. And I don't think it's a coincidence.

Something dawned on me yesterday. I'm beginning to notice a trend in Christian behavior. Now, I haven't done a thorough investigation on the issue, and I'm certainly no scholar, but it seems to me that people like parts of the Bible that say positive things. In particular, positive things geared toward ourselves.

Biblegateway.com listed the 100 most read bible verses on their website, and each of the five above were within the Top 10.

I'm not saying we shouldn't like those verses. Christ died on a cross so our hope could be restored. That is certainly something to celebrate. We should be ecstatic that there is promise in our future.

BUT...

As much as we delight in His promises, we should tremble under His commands.

I've noticed that many of us (and I am including myself) only like to quote the good stuff. We like to read about healing when we're sick, about hope when we're hopeless, about faith when we're doubtful, about plans to prosper when we feel defeated...

And suddenly--it's the strangest phenomenon--when all is well, we forget to keep reading.

I wonder how many people read Proverbs 13:3 or Proverbs 20:19 before they spread juicy gossip, or Exodus 20:12 before they tell their parents where to shove it.

If I had to guess, I'd say the only people quoting those verses on their Facebooks are the ones who are the subject of those verses--as in, you ARE the one being gossiped about or you ARE the parent who is not being honored.

Cases of the offender quoting those verses are very rare, I bet.

There's a logical explanation for all of this: WE ARE SELFISH!

It's human nature. We were born sinful. The desires of our hearts are naturally wicked. That's why we love to remind ourselves of all the wonderful things in our future, but hate to be bothered with what we have to do to achieve those things.

But here's the deal: If you want the reward, you have to work for it.

God didn't call us to be complacent, self-righteous takers. He called us to be passionate, selfless givers. And the only way we can spread truth into the world is to KNOW the truth.

Christianity is not a self-serving religion. The rewards of being a Christian outweigh any gift you could give yourself, but that is a side note. Christianity is not about YOU. It's about HIM. It's about honoring the sacrifice that was made for us.

So read all of the beautiful, uplifting scripture. God intended on it to be in The Bible just as much as the rest of it. He loves us. He wants us to be overjoyed in His promises. He wants us to know that He has plans to prosper us and not to harm us. But he also wants us to know the rest of it.

The Bible is The Bible for a reason, in its entirety. God's offering warning and commands so that we may have knowledge to advance in His kingdom. We're foolish to only read the "good stuff" because we are missing the parts that tell us how to achieve it.

So don't just read a verse today. Read a paragraph. Better yet, read a page or two.