Mark in a Month 1. Hearing God Speak to you Personally Through the Bible (Matt 5:13-16 & Mark 1:1-20)

• A method for daily Bible readings that you can try out for yourself, which will help you to more clearly hear God speak to you through the Bible.

Play Audio:

• Explain readings & booklet

1. What it means to hear God personally

• All Christians are born again by the Spirit of God and the Spirit lives within them.
  • Because of this, God speaks to all of us.
  • There are many ways he can do that but one of them is through the Bible
  • If you are unsure how God speaks, this is a good place to start
• God speaks to us in many different ways (see sermon series on guidance)
  • The Spirit is called the “encourager”

2. Principles

• The two most common complaints are:
  • that it is difficult to be regular
  • that the times are barren and empty
• These two are undoubtedly linked together:
  • When the Bible is feeding us and giving us spiritual encouragement, then it is easy to keep reading
  • but when we find it dry and tedious it soon becomes neglected.

• Source of the problems
  • Most of the problems in our Bible reading come from a misunderstanding of some basic principles.

• The first principle we must recognize is that we need the Holy Spirit in order to understand God’s Word (1 Cor 2:14).
  • It is important to pray before reading
  • And what is more, to remain dependent upon God to help us as we read.
  • We must realize how easily we can miss the true meaning of a passage, or read our own thoughts into it.
  • There must be a submissive dependence on God to open his truth to us, by his Spirit.
• A second principle is that the Holy Spirit speaks to us in the Scriptures via our understanding
  • The Scriptures are not like a superstitious magic charm—we do not wear verses on an amulet to get a blessing from them
  • The Spirit helps us to understand: “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” 1Cor 2:12
• A third and most neglected principle is that we must take time to think or meditate upon or “soak” in what we are reading.
  • So easy to read mindlessly, especially if you know the story
  • “Meditation” conjures up the image of an eastern mystic sitting cross legged, but the meaning of the expression in the Bible is to turn thoughts over in our mind, pondering them, and asking ourselves what they mean and what the implications are.
  • This is usually when the Spirit works to help us understand what he is saying to us and how it applies to our hearts.
  • King David said he meditated day and night on the Scriptures (Psalm 1:2)

A Suggested Solution

• Back in 1981 I met a Bible teacher from New Zealand called Andrew Young who passed on to me a method he had learned from a retired missionary.
  • Since then I have used it myself and taught it to 100’s of people.

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Seven steps for hearing God speak to you personally through the Bible

1. Begin with prayer that God will bless his Word through the Spirit.
2. Read through the day’s passage prayerfully, asking God to help you understand as you read.
   • You should always follow a plan of reading that takes you right through a book, starting each day where you left off the previous day.
   • Never plan to read too much, or there will not be time for the meditation. Ten to fifteen verses is usually ideal, depending on the kind of book. In the Epistles it may be less because there is so much content; but in narratives such as in the Old Testament it may be more.
   • Try to find the natural breaks in the book, and stick to these.
3. Having read the passage at least once, take out a notebook or journal kept specially for this purpose. Note down at the top of the page the passage reference, the date, and in as few words as possible a title that you can think of for the passage.
4. Then comes one of the most important parts. List four or five events or facts, in order, from the passage. The very act of having to recognize and note these down is a great help in understanding what has been read. What’s more, it makes you stop and think.
5. Now look back at yesterday’s passage. Can you see any connection? The Bible is not a random collection of “precious truths”, but is organized so that the ideas in one passage relate to those before and after it, and to the flow of the whole book. Much richness can often be gained by relating these ideas together. If you can see a connection with the previous passage or with the theme of the book then jot it down. If you can’t, then don’t feel that you have to.
6. Ask yourself what the writer was trying to accomplish with this passage? “What was the message of the passage for those who originally read it?” As you can see, these questions are designed to get you meditating on the Word. The message may have been some specific teaching in an Epistle; something to learn about Christ in a Gospel; something in the Old Testament about how God relates to men and women, etc.
7. Finally we come to the most important question: “How does this message relate to my life?” Write down how the message should make a difference to my thoughts or actions. You may find that the Spirit continues to speak to you from the passage throughout the rest of the day.

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3. Example

• Note: A short passage is chosen here because it forms a natural section.

Matthew 5:13–16

4. Let’s try it with Mark

• Write the date and passage
• As I read it, see if you can come up with a title

Mark 1:1–20

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• I continue to think about this during the day, The Spirit keeps working.
• What are your nets?
  • How to I make a livelihood? (—no, Jesus is not necessarily calling you to give up your job! But would you?)
  • Is there a cost in my life to follow Jesus?
  • Now we think about it
• The problem of applying stories to ourselves

5. Next time

• Hear some of your stories (I won’t be grading your books!)
• Learn about who wrote Mark and why, and how the book fits together
  • Some exciting insights into the big picture that will help you as you read it
• Do some more examples