Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

We’re ready for message #3 in our series entitled, “Your Attitude Determines Your Altitude.” God has a great desire for us to reach new heights in our individual lives. He wants us to collectively fly higher as a church family. But if we’re going to reach that higher elevation, it will be because we have the attitude of Jesus. Jesus’ attitude was completely in sync with God’s Word, and so that is our goal as well.

Two weeks ago, we talked about our attitude about God. Last week, we talked about our attitude about sin. This week, we’re moving on to our attitude about God’s Word and about prayer. Now as soon as I say that, many of you will roll your eyes and say, “Here we go again. He’s going to stand up there and just rail on and on about how we should read our Bibles and pray everyday. We’ve heard all this before.”

I will admit that this isn’t the slickest topic in the world. I didn’t dress it up with a cool sounding title or anything like that. But we all need to understand how critical this is to our walk with God. And to help us out, this message is going to be super-practical. I want you to leave with some tools that will actually work in real life. Not stuff that just sounds good in a church service.

Now, it’s confession time for me. As we get started, I want you to understand something about me. I struggle in my devotional life. It is not easy for me to make time to be in the Word and in prayer everyday. You need to understand that being a minister doesn’t change anything. I’m not a super-Christian. I didn’t have a big “S” branded on my chest when I was ordained. I’m a guy who loves God with all my heart, but who is also not perfect. I have made it a priority to spend time reading my Bible and spend time in prayer everyday, but I don’t always succeed. I’m getting better, but I’m a work in progress. This morning, I’m going on the assumption that most of you are in the same boat as me. Struggling, wanting to do better in this area of your life. So what I want to do this morning is share with you some things that I have learned and some things that have worked in my life.

Now let’s jump into our message. When you talk about the Bible, one of the first things that people will often bring up is that this book is pretty old. In fact, it’s thousands of years old. Some would say the Bible is antiquated, archaic, and out-of-date. Can a book that is this old actually be the only book that has the answers that people are looking for today? Does it make sense to believe the Bible? If we’re going to try to set aside a time to read, study, and learn this book, shouldn’t we first know if it even makes sense to believe what the book says?

It makes sense to believe the Bible because it has withstood every attack that it has ever come up against. People have tried to tear up the Bible for centuries, but it has always withstood the test. This book is historically accurate. It is scientifically accurate. Despite countless attempts, no one has ever found a verifiable contradiction in this book even though it was written over 1600 years by more than 40 authors in 3 different languages on 3 different continents. There is a mountain of evidence that backs up the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible.

So if the Bible can be proven to be accurate, if it does make sense to believe that the Bible is the truth, it is God’s Word, then why don’t people actually read it?

There are several major reasons why. Some people say, “I don’t understand the Bible.” There are parts of the Bible that are difficult to grasp. There are parts that I struggle with. That makes sense, though, because this book is from the mind of God. It makes sense that the mind of man can’t understand every single word of it. But, God has made the vast, VAST majority of His Word understandable.

If you have trouble understanding the Bible, you may need to read a more modern translation. Some of you enjoy reading the KJV of the Bible, and that’s fine. That version of the Bible touches your heart and impacts your life, and that’s wonderful. But for me personally, I can’t read it because I don’t understand it. It’s essentially written in a different language.

Here are some of my more favorite passages from the KJV. 1 Kings 11:1 – “Solomon loved many strange women.” The word strange means foreign. Nehemiah 13:26 – “Nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.” The word outlandish also means foreign. Genesis 31:34 – “Now Rachel…put them in the camel’s furniture.” Most camels I know don’t shop at Sofa Express. The word furniture in this case means saddle.

I also like the way the KJV talks about our bodies and our feelings. Psalm 16:7 – “in the night also my kidneys instruct me.” Sounds like the guy had some prostate issues. Lamentations 2:11 – “my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out upon the earth.” Must have had Mexican for dinner.

The point is that if the Bible is difficult for you to understand, get a translation that reads in your language. The NIV has surpassed the KJV as the best selling Bible translation of all time. But I’m finding more and more that even the NIV Bible can use language that is unfamiliar to people today. If you or one of your kids is looking for a modern, readable translation, you might want to try something like the New Living Translation. A lot of people make a big deal about which translation you use, but I don’t. God is bigger than human language, and His Word has life-changing power, but only if it is understood.

Another reason people don’t read the Bible is that they say, “The Bible is boring.” If this is you, I wouldn’t recommend that you go home and try to read through the book of Leviticus. It can be pretty tough reading. However, the Bible is filled with some of the most incredible stories. Charles Dickens said, “The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world.”

But most popular reason for not reading the Bible is time. I don’t have time. It basically comes down to a matter of priorities. We don’t have time because we don’t make time.

What I have found in my life is that I have to set aside a time to be in the Word of God, and it has to be the same time everyday. For me, it’s in the morning. Because if I say that I’ll get to it later, I never do. You need to find the time of day that works for you and then make it a standing appointment with God. If the president of the United States wanted to have a meeting with me, I would clear my schedule of anything and everything to make that meeting happen. Why do I allow trivial things to take me away from my appointment with God?

A lot of times our attitude about the Bible is one of religious duty. I read the Bible because it’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s a chore, but I get through it.

My wife, Nicki, and I are high school sweethearts. We started dating during our junior year and we’ve been together ever since. Yeah, Nicki could have kept on looking. There were other fish in the sea, but when you catch a fish that is this good looking, you don’t throw him back. You mount him on the wall! Anyway, when we were dating in high school, we would give each other little notes throughout the day. We’d pass each other in the hallway and exchange the notes as we were on our way to our next class. Guys, you probably think that’s sappy. Ladies, you probably think that’s sweet. Truthfully, it’s both. We still do pretty much the same thing today. During the workday, we email each other several times a day. It’s just a way to show each other that, “I think about you while I’m at work.” Sometimes those emails are simple. “Hey, what do you want for dinner?” Sometimes they’re sweet, “Just want you to know that I love you.” Sometimes, they’re absolutely none of your business.

When Nicki and I were high school students, I loved getting notes from her. Even today, I love getting emails from her. I don’t dread reading them. It’s not a chore. It’s not a drag. I enjoy them. Why? Because they’re from somebody I love. They’re from somebody who loves me. Why should I approach God’s Word any differently? It’s from a God that I love. It’s from a God who loves me.

This week we mourned the passing of a brother in Christ, Ed Troutman. I never had the privilege of knowing Ed, but there were so many memories shared at his funeral, I left feeling like I knew him well. But one thing that was shared sticks out in my mind. During this service, I learned that Ed studied the Word diligently. Ed loved Jesus, and therefore he loved the Bible. That is a great legacy to leave our kids and grandkids, isn’t it?

Psalm 119:97 says, “Oh, how I love your law! I think on it all day long.” (NLT) God wants us to fall in love with His Word. Loving the Author of the book calls us to love the book itself.

If you’re struggling with spending time in the Word, there is a tool that you have that might help you. It was handed out along with your bulletin. It’s called 30 days with Jesus. It lays out a Bible reading plan that will carry you through the next 30 days. If you want to read the Bible but are unsure where to start, try this over the span of the next month.

If you are struggling with reading your Bible, then chances are you are struggling with your prayer life as well. A lot of us can relate to Jesus’ disciples. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray…” (Luke 11:1, NIV) We want to pray, but we’re just not sure how. In the past, my prayer life has been a haphazard mess. Then I discovered a simple little formula that revolutionized the way I pray. This is not the only way to pray, but it is a way that works for me. This little plan has been around forever, but I’m proof that it still works.

In my prayer time, I just remember the word ACTS. It takes me step-by-step through my prayer. “A” stands for Adoration. For some people, it is a revolutionary thought that worship can happen outside of a Sunday morning service, but it can. In fact, it’s supposed to. God is looking for people who will live a lifestyle of worship; who will worship and praise him everyday, not just on Sunday. And one way to do that is to worship Him in prayer. Adoration prayer simply means you tell God that you love him. You tell him why you love him.

I tell my wife that I love her everyday. Now, we’ve been married almost nine years. I could just assume that nine years of marriage speaks for itself. I mean, if that doesn’t say, “I love you,” then what does? I could just assume that, since she should know that I love her by now, I don’t have to say it anymore. Guys, if you’ve been married more than 5 minutes, you know that is a bad assumption. My wife loves to hear the words. And I love saying the words.

Our relationship with God is no different. Remember what I said a couple of weeks ago? There is nothing we can bring God that He needs, but there is something we can bring him that he greatly desires: our love. God is hungry to hear those words from us. Jesus reminded us that the greatest commandment of all is to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30, NIV) That’s where our prayers need to begin.

The “C” in our formula stands for confession. This is the tough part, but this is the point where we come clean before God. Last week we talked about our attitude about sin. Confession is when we bring the sin that is in our lives and lay it out before God. This is can be a raw, painful thing to do because it forces us to admit how messed up we really are. We may try to put on a mask to fool everyone into thinking that we’ve got it all together, but God knows how messy we really are. Confession is the time when we rip off the mask and bare our very soul to the Lord. It is the time when we seek his forgiveness and grace. And as tough as this can be, it is also the very thing that will set us free. 1 John says, “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.” (1 John 1:9, NLT)

The “T” in ACTS stands for thanksgiving. There is not a person in this room who doesn’t have millions of reasons to be thankful to God. And usually we focus on this one time a year: on a Thursday in late November. God is seeking people who will thank him the other 364 days of the year. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:19b-20, NIV)

Finally, the “S” in our formula stands for supplication. That’s the one problem I see in this plan. Most people never use this word anymore. But it needs to start with “S” to make the acrostic work. Supplication prayer is when we ask for God’s help and guidance. It is when we pray for others. It is when we pray for ourselves. There’s no need to feel guilty in asking for God’s help. We’re commanded to do so. In fact, not giving God your problems is Christian atheism. You are telling God that He can’t handle your problems. Hebrews 4:16 tells us to “come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it.” (NLT)

As I said, this ACTS formula is A way to pray, not THE way to pray. But as you can see, it is Biblically based and it might help you kick-start your prayer life if you’re struggling.

One of the great mistakes that Christian people make is that they believe it is all about religion. We are not called to a religion. God doesn’t want us to have religion. He wants a relationship. You may have noticed that I keep referring to marriage, but that’s as close an example as we have to the kind of close relationship that God wants to have with each one of us. In my marriage, what kind of relationship would I have with my wife if we never communicated? If I never talked to her and I never took the time to listen to her. We wouldn’t have a relationship at all. Communication is marriage 101. It’s foundational for a healthy relationship. That’s why our attitude about God’s Word and prayer is so critical. Because without them, there is no communication between God and me and between me and God. And with no communication, there is no relationship at all.

Almost all of us have some work to do in this area of our walk with Jesus. Almost all of us are an unfinished work. But the great news is that the work will be completed. We will reach all the potential that God has planted in us, but it won’t happen in this lifetime. That’s what we can look forward to in eternity. To reach the goal, not because we’re good enough, not because we deserve it, but because God is a God of grace and forgiveness. And that’s the gift that is available to you today if you’ve never made a commitment to Jesus. If you’ve never made Him your Savior and Lord, understand that God isn’t calling you to a religion; He’s calling you to a relationship. A relationship that can help you live life to the fullest here, and a relationship that offers you the promise of life forever in the presence of God.

Mike Edmisten