I like books. I dearly love to read. When I was a young boy my mom took me to the local library every week. I checked out all kinds of books — mystery, sports, biography and others.
Every week I would read two or three books, return them and then get more.
Fast-forward to my college graduation. At dinner, my father-in-law asked me what the most important thing was that I learned in college.
My answer was that I learned how to read.
You should have seen the puzzled look on my mom’s face. “I taught you how to read when you were 5. What are you talking about?”
That’s when I explained my position. I learned how to read words and sentences as a little boy. But I learned to read books, poems, history and other genres for true comprehension when I went to college. And there is a difference.
The Bible speaks a lot more about reading and books and words than you would imagine. The preacher in Ecclesiastes 12:12 wrote, “Of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Every student who has ever lived would agree. It almost gives us an excuse not to read.
And yet, in John 21:25 we read, “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
I’m glancing up at a shelf in my office that has more than 30 books about Jesus, and that is just the surface.
And then John refers to Jesus as “the Word of God” in the first chapter of his book. God spoke the world into creation. And I could go on for a while.
But read this thought. God has called his church and his children to use our minds as we follow him. Too many Christians almost eliminate thinking and the mind as they worship and serve the Lord. But we are to “love the Lord with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.”
I encourage you to think. Use your mind and follow the Lord. He will not lead you the wrong way.
Use your mind to honor God
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