Read your Bible, it's profitable

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness

It's the fourth Monday of the year, and I hope you've been reading your Bible. If not, today's a great day to begin again.

You should read your Bible everyday because it’s profitable. I’m not asking you to do something that’ll waste your time. I’m asking you to do something that will be for your own good. Reading the Bible will profit your soul.

It’s profitable for learning doctrine. If you read your Bible, you'll learn truth about yourself, about God, about the world, about the end of the world, and about the world to come. Have you ever made a bad decision in life because you didn't have all the facts? Think about the profit of knowing truth about your own heart! Truth about God! Truth about why we are on this Earth and what happens when we die.

It’s profitable to tell you the truth about yourself. God will correct you when you read the Bible. That’s chastisement and discipline, and that’s good for you. When you don’t read the Bible you are not listening to your God. As a father, I come from a long tradition of men, who for about 6,000 years or so, have children who from time to time, don't listen to what I tell them. When that happens, I have to take the discipline up a notch. It's much easier for children to listen to correction and then make the correction than to ignore it and endure the next step. Reading your Bible, receiving correction, is the first gentle step of rebuke from a loving Father.

It’s profitable to tell you how to live and instruction in righteousness. The whole world is ready to tell you how to live. What you should wear, what you should drive, what you should eat, how you should think, and much of it is destructive. But when you read your Bible, God is instructing you in how to live.

It’s profitable for a future day. You might read something tomorrow morning, that doesn’t apply to your life in any way, shape or form. But who knows what the next day will bring? When tragedy comes, it’s too late to start a systematic Bible study to figure what to believe. Consider Job. When the horrors of that terrible day came upon him, he leaned on the truth he learned in happier days. Read your Bible in the sunshine, and it will pray it will bear fruit in a needful day to come.

Read your Bible, it’s profitable.