IT STARTS WITH BEING A FAN

Why is it so hard to do a deep dive into the Bible? Maybe it isn’t hard for you, but I find it challenging and a little bit intimidating for me. There are names that I can’t pronounce and a string of lineage that goes on for eons. I am not familiar with the geographic locations where most of the accounts took place, and nothing is in chronological order. How in the world are we supposed to be able to keep track of everything? Maybe, if I was a devoted fan, then it wouldn’t be so hard.

It starts with being a fan

My brother-in-law and niece are huge Star Wars fans. They have all of the movies, and they have watched all of them countless times. Every year, there is a huge celebration called Dragon Con near where they live. They love going to Dragon Con and seeing people walking around in costumes of their favorite characters.

Extended hours go into making these elaborate costumes, and my niece and brother-in-law enjoy participating in all of the festivities. They create their costumes and take lots and lots of pictures. I would consider them to be Star Wars experts since I am not proficient in Star Wars trivia.

But, much to my surprise, my niece and BIL aren’t Star Wars experts at all. There is a Star Wars trivia contest you can enter while you are at Dragon Con. I thought that one of them would for sure be near the top percent in this area, but they didn’t last long at all. Turns out, there are a lot of people who are even bigger fans than my niece and BIL.

Back Story

Because the thousands of participants who attend Dragon Con each year are fans, they watch the movies over and over again and study up on all of the events. The original Star Wars movie didn’t start at the beginning, so there were subsequent movies that told the back story. The back story is where you learn why the characters acted the way they did. This is where you learn where they lived, who their families were, and the events that shaped their personalities.

Engaged fans know all of this information. They have spent countless hours researching the characters and reading about their lives. They can even recall and verbalize their words from certain movie scenes. The engaged fan probably has groups or friends that discuss each movie’s different nuances and share the secrets they just discovered.

Devoted Fan

There are a lot of fans in this world and I bet each of us can relate to one of them. For some people, sports would be the first thing that comes to mind. They have a particular sports team that they root for each game, wear jerseys, and talk about the game while standing around the water cooler. For others, it might be a television show or NetFlix series they are obsessed with watching.

What takes someone from being a fan, or an engaged fan, to being a devoted fan? You can be a fan, talk about your subject with friends, and even wear the clothing, but you also have to sacrifice something that shows your love to be a devoted fan. In most cases, the sacrifice is time. You might spend time researching the subject, watching videos, reading articles, attending group discussions, or going to conferences. You usually have emails that will hit your inbox related to the topic you’re devoted to, and you look forward to getting them.

God’s Word

This brings me to the Bible, the words of God. The ones that I said earlier were hard to read and understand. It makes me wonder if I am a “devoted fan,” would I feel the same way? There is a difference between reading the Bible and taking a deep dive into the Bible. But, doing that would require a sacrifice of time. It would also require the additional help of books, devotionals (the one I am currently doing), study guides, and small groups. There are experts who have already spent countless hours pouring over the Bible, and we can, and should, take advantage of their sacrifice.

2 Timothy 3:16

¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Matthew 4:4

⁴ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”

The Lord doesn’t expect us to know everything that we read. He understands that we will scratch our heads and wonder what the scriptures mean, and how we can apply them to our lives. Just because the words are foreign to us doesn’t mean that we can’t mispronounce a word and still come away with the meaning of the text.

Luke 24:45

⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.

Light bulb moment!!! Maybe if we pray and ask the Lord to help us understand what we read, He will answer our prayers.

If you are reading this post, then you are probably already a fan of God. Now, it is up to us to sacrifice our time so that we can become DEVOTED fans, and put the Lord first in our lives. I wrote a post about creating Devotional Habits that might be some help. 

To God Goes The Glory!

Have A Blessed Day!