‘Secret’ to spiritual success
Holding my newest published book in my hands, Volume 1 of the DO Drops daily devotional, it occurs to me that the journey it took to produce this book is at least a 45-year journey, and a journey that someone else set me on. “Mama, what are we going to do?”
That was the question I asked each time a Sunday morning came along on which the man of the house had decided that we would not be allowed to go to church. He would proceed to mess around under the hood of the car for a few moments, and when he was done, the car would not start. “We have feet, don’t we?”
She would smile as she said those words, and it was not until I was much older that I understood that the confident smile was for my benefit, and that underneath it she was actually very scared, yet determined to do right.
And so we would walk. Some days we would walk all the way there, arriving near the very end of service. Other days someone would see us and pick us up and give us a ride. And when we arrived, we would always slip in somewhere near the back, over on the right side, and my mother would reverently open her Bible. I would do the same, and to this day I can still see that blue hardback book with the picture of Bible scenes on it in my mind.
I never had a question in my mind of the importance of God or his word. My mother loved that book, my godly old pastor loved it, and an old man named Mr. Landers, who to me seemed on the same level as Moses or Abraham, loved it as well.
I remember the awe welling up inside of me when I heard Mr. Landers mention in church, and not at all in a braggadocios way, that he had just finished reading the Bible through cover to cover for the 50th time. I asked my mother how that was even possible with such a big book.
“By reading it every single day,” was the simple answer.
And so it began for me. I could not quite make out all of the words, but the older I got the easier it became. And when I was nine years old I read it through cover to cover for the first of my own 50-plus times.
It made a difference. How could it not? Joshua 1:8 says, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
I was thinking on this about a year and a half ago, and wondering how I could make sure, or at least as sure as possible, that my own congregation was daily spending
time in the Word. The idea came to me to start preparing and sending all of them a daily devotional text to their phones, with an application at the end of each one, and DO Drops was born. From that it was natural to begin to turn them into daily devotional books.
Why all of the effort to promote daily Bible reading, and why for those who do it all the effort to read the Bible each day? Because nothing can ever do all that the written Word of God can do. In case you think I am overstating that, consider the fact that when the very Son of God himself was tempted by the devil, rather than saying, “Do you know who I am? How dare you tempt me!” he instead, three times, said, “It is written...”
When aged Peter put pen to parchment to write the second book of the Bible that bears his name, he wrote of his magnificent experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. What could be better than seeing and experiencing such a thing? Well, according to Peter, Scripture, the written Word of God, is a “more sure word” than even that great experience.
When Paul wrote to Timothy, he told him that it was the Scriptures, the written Word of God, which have the ability to make us wise unto salvation.
When Jesus was accosted by people who wanted to discredit him, or even kill him if possible, rather than doing some miracle to prove his point he said, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”
I notice that, especially on social media, multitudes of people these days are either looking for “the secret to spiritual success” or claiming that they have found that secret. But here is the thing; it really isn’t a secret at all:
Spend time carefully and prayerfully reading your Bible every single day.