You Want to Read Your Bible But You Don’t | The Spiritual Reasons Why & How to Fix

Here are the spiritual reasons why you struggle to commit to God's Word. The first root cause, number 1, demonic attack. Now, I want to be careful with the way I say this because far too many Christians blame far too many of their problems on demonic beings. I understand that the enemy does attack. I understand that the enemy does strategize against us. But that doesn't mean that we're not contributing to the problem. Nevertheless, we have to be aware of how the devil attacks Christians. So take a look at this in Matthew 13:19. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the kingdom and don't understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts. This is what Satan does. As you're trying to receive the Word, as you're trying to intake that revelation knowledge, the devil comes and snatches up the seeds of the Word. He does this through distraction. He does this through deception. There are various forms of attacks that he has against you, but he comes for the Word of God. And this is his strategy because once he can remove, and please hear this, this is very important, once he removes from you your first line of defense, Once he's taken from your life devotion to the Word, or I should put it this way, once he's deceived you in a way that's caused you to decide to neglect the Word, well, now you're open to demonic attack. Now he can begin to deceive you more. Now he can begin to tempt you with more effectiveness. Now he can begin to distract you more effectively, to discourage you more effectively, to confuse you more effectively. Look at what Jesus says in John 10:10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Notice here that the devil steals, kills, and destroys, and it is in that order. Why? Because first he steals the Word. And once he steals the Word, then he can kill and destroy in your spiritual life. So what's the solution? I'm going to give you scripture. I'm not going to give you a scripted prayer. I'm not going to give you some hyper-specific spiritual warfare technique. We have to be led by the Holy Spirit, and we have to be led by the Word of God. The Word of God reveals how you can come against the attacks of the enemy. It's not complicated. It doesn't take years and months and weeks. It is effective once you begin to apply this truth. James 4:7, so humble yourselves before God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Or submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Now, many believers are trying to resist the devil, but because they're not yet submitted to God, the devil doesn't flee. And then they want to go and blame the Holy Spirit. Well, God didn't give me the breakthrough I wanted, or God's not hearing me, or God's not doing what I'm asking him. No, my friend. You have to first submit to God. You have to submit to His nature. You have to submit to His Word. You have to submit to His voice. And once you begin to submit, now there's that power, that strength that rises in you, and you can resist the devil in a way that he now flees. So obedience to God, sensitivity to His voice, responsiveness to His commands and directions, that is what ultimately positions you With spiritual authority. And once you're standing in obedience, you're standing in divine power. And in that divine power, now you can resist the devil, and now he flees. Number 2 is doubt. We neglect the Word of God because we doubt deep in our hearts, though we might not say this out loud, we doubt that it will actually produce change. We doubt that it will actually make a difference in our hearts and in our minds. We doubt that there's actual power. We even doubt that we're worthy to approach God to receive his word. Maybe you're dealing with some insecurity, some shame regarding your past, some hyper-awareness of your own flaws. And because of that, you feel so guilty that you don't even want to approach the word of God. Well, think about Adam and Eve. When they sinned, what did they do? They hid from God. That's shame. Shame drives you to hide from God. And sometimes shame, which is a form of doubt, because shame Is a lack of faith in the forgiveness of God. Shame will keep you from the Word. It's a form of doubt. Think about this. God Himself wants to talk to you. The Creator of the universe, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent, all-loving. God Himself wants to talk to you. Now, this is someone Who knows all things, as I just mentioned a moment ago. This is someone who knows everything. He knows the future. He knows his plans for you. He knows motives and intentions of the people around you. He knows you better than you know yourself. He can see the situation in all of its details. What kind of an advantage is that? It's amazing. And God talks to us. Primarily through His Word. Now, I think we acknowledge that intellectually, but we've not really embraced that truth, have we? Because if we truly believe, I mean deep down within, we truly believe that when we read the Word, God is talking to us, there would be this level of excitement every single day to read the Word that would be unmatched by almost anything else. Amen. So why do we neglect it? Well, because on some deep level, we don't actually believe that. Because if you removed that doubt, if you truly believed that, there would be no keeping you from this book. You wouldn't choose social media over this book. You wouldn't choose your latest series that you're binge-watching over this book. You wouldn't choose pointless entertainment Over this book. You wouldn't choose sin over this book. If you truly believed it, that God himself was speaking to you, you would be in this word obsessively, consistently, with discipline and diligence. So what's the fix for this? Well, it's simple faith. In Isaiah 55:10-11, we read, The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it. This is God talking about the effectiveness of his own word. It's impossible for the word of God to produce no effect in our lives. Whether you immediately see the results of it or not, remember, the word of God is a seed, and seeds sometimes take time to grow. There is something happening in the spiritual realm when you take in the word of God. And you've got to come to this realization. You've got to accept that truth, and you have to allow yourself to ponder The profound reality that this is God talking to you. Meditate on that truth. Think about that truth and allow yourself to become expectant with faith whenever you approach the Word of God. Listen, if this message is challenging you and you think this can benefit other Christians, then do your part. Make sure you leave a like on the video right now. Also, don't forget to subscribe so that you can continue to receive teachings like this, teachings that will empower you, encourage you, correct you, and reveal the nature of the Holy Spirit. Number 3 is disorder. This is a scattered schedule. You've got to get your life in order. You've got to get control of your time. You have to stop the procrastination. You have to stop the scattered planning. It's time to be like your Heavenly Father. It's time to get organized. It's time to structure what God has given to you. Do you realize that time is a gift from God? He's given you every moment of your every day. And how you steward that time or how you manage that time is either honoring of God Or dishonoring of God. You see, the issue is that you're kind of just waking up and allowing the day to present tasks to you. Listen now, that's aimlessness. The day shouldn't tell you what to do next. You need to tell the day where it's going. The time shouldn't control you. You should master time. So when you wake up, Do you have intention for the day? Do you set a schedule? Do you have a plan? Or do you kind of just go through the day doing whatever presents itself to you? You know you need to be somewhere by a certain time, but instead of getting ready with that in mind, you just kind of get ready whenever you feel like it, at the pace you feel like going, stopping maybe to talk with a friend, stopping maybe to scroll through social media, stopping maybe to do something else. And then you realize, oh my goodness, I'm 15 minutes late. How did that happen? You rush out the door. Now, I'm not saying this is everyone's situation. So keep in mind that it's going to vary from person to person. But that is one type of scenario. That is, that's how some people live. And so maybe it's not that bad for you, but maybe you do find yourself not in the Word daily. And if you're not in the Word daily, there's something wrong with your schedule. I want to say that again. If you're not in the Word daily, there's something wrong with your schedule. You see, we often go through the day, accomplish our tasks for work, for school, for friends, for family. If you're married, for your spouse. If you have children, for your children. If you have a business, for your business. If you're healthy, you got to do your workouts. You got to make sure you're dieting. All of those things are scheduled, planned. And then at the end of the day, We go, oh yeah, let me squeeze in some Bible reading here. Or maybe we wake up rushed in the morning. We have so much on our plate, we just say, okay, I can, I can do that another day. My friend, it's time to stop trying to squeeze the Word of God into your schedule, and it's time to schedule everything around devotion to the Word. The fix for disorder is discipline. You've got to become disciplined. You've got to become diligent. You've got to approach the day with intention. God gave you the day. He said, here's the gift of today. How are you gonna manage this? And you need to take that and say, okay, how do I arrange this day to reach my full potential for today? How do I arrange this day to maximize my time for every category of my life? How do I arrange this day to prioritize God? Now, when I say prioritize God, I don't mean necessarily that you have to give more time to Bible reading than you do to anything else. I mean, if you work for 8 hours a day, you sleep for 6 hours a day, you go on date night with your wife for 2, 3 hours, you got to spend some time with your kids. God's not going to get mad if you spent an hour in the Word. It's not about necessarily giving the most time in the day to the Word. but about prioritizing it to where you can actually get in the Word and hear from God and you're not rushing through it. That's what I mean when I say prioritize it. In Colossians 3:23, we read, work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Whatever you do has to be unto God. This includes scheduling your day. So you might say, well, I'm more of a spontaneous person. I'm really not all that organized. So God understands, my friend. We are called to be like Jesus. We're called to be like our Heavenly Father. We are called to share in his nature, and his nature is organized. So if you're a disorganized person, if you're just spontaneous with your time, if you're aimless with your scheduling, it's time to repent. This is a root cause. You're never going to fix the problem of inconsistency in the word. You're never going to fix the problem of of neglect of the word if you don't get ahold of your schedule. Number 4, distraction has to do with having a scattered mind. So maybe you do finally sit down to read the word, you open the book, you look at the pages, you go maybe Matthew 2:1, you start reading verse 1, 2, 3, and then you go, wait a minute, what did I just read? Let me start over. 1, 2, 3. 2, 3, 4. Now you get to verse 4 and you go, did I pay that bill? I'm wondering, how is so-and-so doing? Or what was that song that was in my head the other day? I can't remember. The mind starts just going anything and everything. You know why? That's your flesh fighting you. Your flesh doesn't want to devote to the Word. Your flesh wants distraction. Your flesh wants entertainment. Your flesh wants anything that doesn't weaken it. And the Word of God, discipline to the Word, begins to weaken it. And so now you're going through, maybe you get through the whole chapter, and after you get to the end of the chapter, you realize, I didn't understand anything that I just read. So how am I supposed to apply it? You go back up to the top again. That, my friend, is a scattered mind. How do you fix that? Well, I gave you the fix for demonic attack. It's submission to God. The fix for doubt is simple faith. The fix for disorder is simple discipline. The fix for distraction—that is, the scattered mind—is meditation. Meditation on the word. Psalm 119:148 declares, "Mine eyes prevent the night watches that I might meditate in thy word." In other words, the writer of this psalm is saying, "I don't even sleep at night sometimes." Because I'm just running scripture through my mind. Think about that, getting to that place where you're so obsessed with the word, you're so in love with God's word that as you're sleeping, you're going, well, I don't want to fall asleep just yet. I want to, I want to, I want to replay what I, what I was reading today. I want to replay what I was meditating on today. That's the power of meditation. Focus is the mental muscle of intention. And sometimes that focus is fatigued by the behaviors that we participate in all throughout our days. So focus is like a muscle, and you'll feel it at work. As you read the Scripture, there's this attempt, there's this tensing of the mind to try to focus it on what you're reading. That is your focus muscle at work. And sometimes when that focus muscle is fatigued, your mind begins to wander. It's kind of like your posture. There's certain muscles that hold your posture in place, and when you get fatigued, you just begin to slouch. Same thing with mental focus. That muscle in the mind, the muscle of the mind holds your attention on what you're reading. On what you're trying to focus on. And when your mind becomes fatigued, that focus muscle begins to weaken and your mind starts to wander. Do you know what fatigues your focus? Doom scrolling all day on social media. Do you know what fatigues your focus? Neglecting the discipline of reading. Do you know what fatigues your focus? Mindless entertainment. To the point where it's overboard. I mean, it's an excessive amount of mindless entertainment. Be careful of how you live your life, because how you live your life could be fatiguing and weakening that mental muscle that is focus. You strengthen that muscle by choosing with great intention to focus your thoughts. And so, when you're reading the word, you'll feel that. Now that I've pointed it out, watch. You're going to feel that mental muscle in your mind. You're going to go to the word and you're going to feel it weakening and your attention going away, and you're going to feel yourself tensing it again and putting that focus right back on the scripture. That's the battle you're in. So I'm going to show you how to strengthen that focus muscle, that mental muscle of intention. So when you read a scripture, Ask yourself, do I just read a scripture or a portion of scripture or a chapter of the Word and then go right to the next thing? No, it's not what you're supposed to be doing. You need to hold the weight. You need time under tension in that mental focus muscle, and you hold it by choosing to think about the truths of the Word. Meditation is a spiritual discipline. To where I read the words and I close my eyes and I start to replay the words again and again. Meditation is repetition in thought. I'm repeating the truths in my mind. Meditation is saying them out loud slowly that the truths might permeate your mind. Meditation is praying the truths that you just received. And you'll notice as you continue to do this, It helps you memorize the scripture. It helps you to think deeply about the scripture. The scripture begins to actually permeate your prayers. You actually begin to remember the scripture as you're living through everyday life. And so now you can apply them. Apply that meditation and you will improve the distraction of a scattered mind. So, Lord, I pray you make that one watching this a lover of your word. Cause them to be so obsessed with your truth that they are devoted to it every single day of their life. Lord, I pray that you would give them the discipline, the diligence, the grace, the strength, the focus to become daily readers of your word. And Lord, as they read the scripture daily, I pray that by your Holy Spirit you would cause that word to transform them. Cause it to become a part of who they are. Let the scripture permeate every aspect of their being. Let it be as a fire in their bones. And Father, from this day forward, I pray that you would remind them to put into practice these spiritual disciplines: devotion to the word, consistency in the word, meditation on the word, obedience to the word, that they might become people of Your word. Let them speak that word. Let them memorize that word. Let them live that word. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. I want you to say if you believe it. If you believe that from this day forward you're going to become devoted to the word, type a big amen. Well, listen, if you want to help us make a difference in this world, please become a supporter of this ministry. If this ministry has been blessing you, You've been receiving the word. You've had encounters with the Holy Spirit. You've been encouraged, uplifted, corrected. The confusion has been clarified on any number of topics. Then help to pay it forward. We want others to experience healing, deliverance, salvation, encounters with the Holy Spirit. So go right now, become a monthly ministry supporter. Sign up right now. DavidHernandezMinistries.com/partner. Go there and ask the Holy Spirit, what should I give monthly? You can also give a single gift by going to davidhernandezministries.com/donate. I can tell you this, I know God will bless you. I know God will use your gift to impact others. And we as a ministry commit to you that we will maximize the efficiency of every dollar given to our organization. There's no gift so small that it doesn't count, and there's no gift so large— there's no gift that's so large that is gonna catch us off guard, that we're not gonna know what to do with it. There's a plan in place. There are systems in place given to us by the Holy Spirit. We're ready to run. If you enjoyed this message, make sure to also check out my teaching titled Pay Attention! If You're Seeing These Signs, You're Anointed.