Episode 2740 - Lesson 4 - Thursday April 23 - State of the Heart ❤️‍🩹

State of the Heart❤️‍🩹Our ability to receive instruction from God’s Word (Job 22:22) depends largely on what the state of our heart is like when we come to the Bible. How does 1 Corinthians 2:14 explain this?To have spiritual discernment means to have spiritual insight and understanding. It makes sense, then, that a spiritually open-minded person will have very different takeaways in reading the Bible than a spiritually closed-minded person. Someone who thinks the Bible is foolish won’t look for truth in its pages.So, both our attitude toward the Bible and the way we approach reading it are very important when it comes to growing in a relationship with God. How does Paul explain this in 1 Thessalonians 2:13?God’s Word works in us when we believe. When you open your Bible and believe that God has something to say to you through the words on the pages, He will indeed speak to you and work in your life. But so much depends on your faith and your expectations. The good news is that if your faith is small, God can help it to grow (Mark 9:24), even if it’s tiny like a mustard seed (Luke 17:6).One of the great purposes of the Bible is to speak truth into our lives about the condition of our relationship with God and how to strengthen it. If your heart is open to the Holy Spirit, if you approach the Word with humility, you will always come away changed, although one might not always immediately recognize this day by day, because such change and growth is often incremental. But if we cling to our apathy and sin and are not willing to change, Bible reading can avail us little good. The Holy Spirit prompts us to move closer to Jesus Christ. Do we want to step closer? If so, we become “wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:15), and we’ll see things we never even imagined.What is the state of my heart and mind as I approach the Bible? Am I just bringing my opinions to the Bible with the goal of trying to justify them, or am I coming with an open mind and heart, ready with childlike faith to see what God wants to tell me today? Why is that answer so important?