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The Life-Changing Power of Reading the Bible Four Times a Week · iRefresh Podcast

• 0:00
  We have made life so busy and full of things and technology. I can tell you, when I read the Bible, if my phone is sitting next to me, it distracts me. Welcome to the iRefresh podcast, where every conversation points to the life-changing power of God's living word. Let's pursue God together one conversation at a time.
• 0:23
  I'm so excited to talk with you today with my friend, Dina Spires. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. So Dina has had quite a few hats with us for quite some time. She is photographer. She is our editor. And she has been my director. Thank you.
• 0:39
  And she's done filming a little bit of everything. And then she's part of the prayer ministry as far as a prayer team as well. So we're now we're well, and we've also had her on one of our other episodes where we talked about basically kind of finding some new clarity and direction in your life. And hope. We did one on hope. Yes. Faith. Faith.
• 1:00
  So she's also, she has been a hostess on the fly when I've had her do that and I got behind the scenes. So it's great to have you. And one of the things that we're both passionate about is just about how God's Word can transform our lives. How we don't always realize it that all of a sudden when we have spent time in spending
• 1:23
  quality time with the Lord, the Word starts to really come up into our thoughts and helps us to give us clarity or speak life-giving things into our own life as well into others. So we want to dive into that and how it's been working in your life. Right. Yes. And for me, it totally transformed who I am as a Christian. Well, we can start with my story.
• 1:48
  Let's do that. Okay, we'll start with my story. Yes. So I was saved at three in the back of a station wagon when we were moving to Canada. And I grew up in the church and everything I knew about God I heard in church. But I never really read my Bible in a verse here and there, but I never studied it. So it was really hard for me with the King James, these and thous. I was like, okay, I can't do this, which a lot of people, you know,
• 2:13
  Many people feel this way, for sure. Right. Well, I got to a point in my life, I had lived a decent life doing the right things. You know, I grew up in that mindset where don't do this, don't do that, don't follow these rules, because that's what God requires of us. Yes. Yes.
• 2:30
  And I said, I kept saying, well, I kept failing. And I'm like, it brings shame when you fail, you know. And so I got to this point, and this was just a few years ago, where I was like, God, why am I here? Like, who am I? Why did you even create me? And the only way I knew to figure that out was to read his Bible.
• 2:50
  So I actually started in the New Testament, which I would advise for anybody. That's a good starting point. Yes. I figured if I want to know why I'm here, I need to hear Jesus. What did he say? And so I started and I read through the whole New Testament. And I learned so much that I never learned from churches or things that you thought were real. Like they weren't in the Bible. Yeah.
• 3:17
  I'm just curious, too, when you were reading it, were you expecting that when you were reading a chapter at a time, it sounds like that it was going to do something like change you? No, I had no idea. I was looking for an answer to a question. But I know a lot of Christians will say The Chosen is off base on some things. But I was watching The Chosen at the same time that I was reading Jesus's words.
• 3:45
  And that made me fall in love with Jesus so deeply, seeing it in the Bible and then watching it live. Like the chosen Jesus was the Jesus I always imagined he would be. And he was funny and relatable and, you know, just compassionate. He had anger. He cried, you know. He was emotional. Yeah.
• 4:08
  Yes. It really was. But every Jesus you see is so stiff, thou shalt not. And it didn't resonate with me. So watching The Chosen while I read the New Testament, just, I mean, I cried every episode because I'm like, that's who I see in the Bible. That's the Jesus that I imagined. But that's where when the scripture talks about how the word is alive and active, it really, that's where I hear that it became life-giving to you. Yes, yes.
• 4:36
  Yes, because all those years you hear the stories of Jesus, but then it never clicks. You know, I'm saved from what, you know. How does that apply to me? Right, exactly. And then like everything is a sin, not everything is sin, but you know, you feel like.
• 4:52
  Oh, I just told a lie. Or I just talked bad about somebody. All of those were reasons in my mind growing up to go to hell. And I was like, I don't want to go to hell, but I'm not good enough. Right. Oh, yeah. And it's interesting. So I bring back up The Chosen because there's a scene with Mary Magdalene where she goes back to her old life. Yeah.
• 5:11
  And Jesus sends the disciples to find her and they bring her back and she comes in in shame. And she says, I just can't do it. I can't, I can't live up to it. And he says, you don't have to. All I need is your heart.
• 5:29
  And I bawled during that scene, how many times do we condemn ourselves for sinning, for doing something that we said we'd never do again, and then there we are doing it. And all He wants is our heart, you know, but we feel in ourselves that I have to do this right, and this right, and this right, and God used me to do something great for you. He doesn't care. He just wants
• 5:59
  many of us, we've grown into the do's and the don'ts. And you also hear about the blessings and cursing. And when you read that in the Old Testament, you're like, wow, that was extreme. Then there's a lot more curses than there were blessings. And so you're like, boy, I am...
• 6:16
  I am ready for the curses and maybe I'm living in the curse because that law giving attitude, it is such a, I don't know, I think there's such a critical part in our lives, even when we're young, because we, you know, we both grew up
• 6:32
  in the church, but I don't think they really helped us to always put it together of how the love of Christ was there to help us, to guide us into the truth about, here, I want you to live in the new freedom. I want you to live in my fullness of forgiveness and learn to forgive ourselves, because I think that's the part, too. I don't know about you, but...
• 6:55
  I know that God's big enough that he forgives. He can forgive my sins. But then when you can look in the mirror is can now you forgive yourself for what you did. Right. And it's interesting because in that scene with Mary Magdalene, he says, she says, I basically I blew it. And he goes, if you blew it and my redemption is only good for one day, is that really redemption? Yeah.
• 7:21
  You know, and it makes you think like we think, I blew it. I'm not, you know, I'm not good enough. None of us are good enough. Exactly. You know, and it's so easy to judge other people's sin, but we're all sinners in whatever our thorn is in our side. We're all dealing with our own stuff. And so it really reading it, I just felt the love of Jesus so much like I never had. And I realized that.
• 7:47
  I'm never going to live up to what he did for me. I'll never be able to repay him for that, no matter how good I am, no matter how many things I accomplished for him. But he loves me and he's redeemed me. And to understand that fully, I think that's the difference between being saved by works or the works showing that you're saved.
• 8:11
  You know what I mean? Well, yeah, it's a measuring if I do enough. I mean, I, and that's not a slam on Catholics, but I know that there's like, when you're repentant, there's things you have to do to kind of earn your graces back. And I realized that.
• 8:27
  A very similar thing, I felt like I had to do a lot of good deeds to win back the graces with the Lord in His favor and not realizing that is a wrong concept. It doesn't matter to Him. Do you love me? If you love me, obey my commandments. And to me, that always translated as I better obey His commandments or He won't love me. That's not what it says. When you fall in love with Jesus and you know what He did for you, you don't want to be the one to put another stripe on His back.
• 8:57
  So you don't sin. Like I have no desire to do anything wrong. And every day it's like, God, show me what I need to change. I don't want to offend you. I don't want to hurt you. I want to show you the kind of love that you've shown me.
• 9:11
  That's beautiful. And it changes everything. It really does. So after you read through the New Testament, where did you find God leading you? I started with the Genesis at the beginning of this year. I started reading it and I was like...
• 9:28
  Oh, God actually walked the earth. I mean, you think about that, like he was on the earth and they still sinned. Yes. I mean, I always say if Jesus was here talking to me, I would do whatever he asked, but they didn't.
• 9:43
  blows my mind. You know, I never thought about that. And then there was how many times God actually walked the earth, like with Adam and Eve, with Enoch, and then the Tower of Babel, it says they came down to scatter people. Like I always thought the Tower of Babel was because they were trying to get to heaven. Like that's why he came down. But it actually says that if everybody is speaking the same language, there was nothing that they couldn't accomplish.
• 10:10
  And that blew my mind. I'm like, wow. So if we were all united, we could accomplish anything. And in today's society with tech, we can speak each other's languages. Right. So we're getting to that time where we could do anything. But he scattered people because he realized the potential of us to do anything that he's created. Right. And almost become little gods. You know what I mean? Right.
• 10:34
  Well, and there is a reference to that, about little gods. Right. Yeah, that's so true. So that was something that I learned. And then the ark, I always learned growing up, it rained for 40 days, for nights. But it didn't just rain. Like, the whole earth exploded from underneath. Like, those are just things that...
• 10:53
  if you don't read it, you don't understand like everything. And so people are trying to defend why the Bible is not true, but they haven't read it. Right. It's based on what they've heard. And I think that when you don't have that first encounter, you're like a first witness to what is the word saying and then how does that speak to you? That's the beauty of how the Lord comes and
• 11:15
  helped us to understand it though. Right. So it's not so intimidating. Yes. I still pray, God, when I open this, please let me understand it. Exactly. And show me something new because you can, there are things that I've read over the years that when I read it now, I was like, oh,
• 11:30
  I never saw that. You know, and he brings that revelation to you. And it's interesting. And then I didn't know, well, you said this, that it was at Isaiah that was naked for three years. Right. I just read that. OK, I've read through the Bible multiple times and I don't need to know a number because it's not about that, but it's.
• 11:51
  I don't know why. I read a different translation. And when I read it this time, I'm like, oh, my goodness. Why? How could I have missed it from the different translations that he was naked for three years? I'm like, please never call me to be whatever that was. Like, no way. I'm like...
• 12:08
  I was, you can always learn something every time you go to the Word. You can. And that one, it didn't explain why, did it? I didn't find an explanation. God told him to. I have no idea. Talk about obedience. And I think if it was Isaiah, I think, I don't know, I'll get mixed up the prophets because I was reading different ones and how one had to lay on his side for a year and then he flipped over the other year or a half. I am amazed of like, why God?
• 12:36
  I mean, it is. He doesn't explain everything. No, he doesn't. There are mysteries still there. And he's still like that. It's funny because when he like he says, if you love me, obey me. Right. Yes. Sometimes he asks you to do really strange things, but we're not to question them. We're just supposed to obey. And sometimes that's hard. But I can tell you from experience, every time I've done it my way, it's not the right way. Yeah.
• 12:59
  Well, you see the repercussions when we are not following that guideline of the Lord, that He really has something in the works, but we don't get to see the whole plan because He's wanting us to trust Him. I think it's good that if we knew it all, we'd probably stop. Yeah.
• 13:17
  I think that we want to know. We get so enticed by the knowing. I think that's why we can get too off balance. And, you know, some people even will go into wanting to have horoscopes or fortune telling or even prophetic. Like everybody's so curious about the future. And it's really paved in a place of you just don't want to trust God, that he's got you, that he's got you.
• 13:42
  so loving and caring towards us that he's got the best in mind for our future. Not only does he think about the future, but the here and the now and how, like, if you look at the Bible, there were 40 authors, there were 1,500 years, 63.
• 13:57
  33,779 cross-references linking different passages and books together, 66 books across three continents in three languages. There's a guy, Peter Stoner. He was a mathematician who calculated all this. And he said, just to fulfill eight specific Old Testament messianic prophecies, the chance is one in 10 to the 17th, which is one in 100 quadrillion. Wow. Wow.
• 14:24
  So, I mean, humanly, nobody could have orchestrated that. Right. You know what I'm saying? They said that for that to happen, that if you took the state of Texas and you put silver coins two feet deep and had one of them marked with an X, took a man and blindfolded him, had him walk as far as he wanted to around Texas and pick only one coin, that's the likelihood that that could have happened. Really? Yeah. That is mind blowing. I know.
• 14:53
  Wow. Even if it was in the smallest state, that is massive. Even if it's in this room. That's true. I mean, with a blind person. Yeah. Unbelievable. I know. But that's how good his word is and how real it is. Like he shows it to be real all the time. And you can...
• 15:10
  see it in scripture. In living in today's times, you can see prophecy unfolding right in front of us. It is. Yeah. And we're seeing God move and he's doing things. He's been always doing something. He's always looking for those who will seek after him. Yes. And that's it. That's what made me do it. I was seeking. And so many of us live our Christian, let's go to church today. Okay, we're going home, but we don't
• 15:32
  change because we're not daily interacting with the Bible. So there were some, as I was researching this, there were some interesting statistics. I thought we'd go over those. That's awesome. The good news is that there's a revival in the land, especially from young men. So it's amazing. Yes. I love hearing that.
• 15:53
  So, you know, we're going to start by really something that I get confused about. I think we both talk about the different generations. Like, I know I'm a baby boomer, but there are the more current ones. Let's go through what is a gen alpha? Gen alpha is this generation. So 2013 to 25. Okay. So...
• 16:14
  I don't have one of those as a kid. That'd be my grandchildren. That's right. There we go. And then Gen Z would be what age? That would be 1997 to 2012, which is our kids. Okay. So the millennials, which are also called Gen Y is? Yes. So that's 1981 to 1996. Okay. And Gen X? That's me. Barely. Barely, but it's me. Yeah.
• 16:38
  So in the 65 to 1980. Yes. That's not 65 years old. That's 1965. Yeah. 1965. And then the silent generation. Isn't that crazy? Wow. He forgot boomers. Boomers are 1946 to 64. Well, I am the boomer. I didn't want to give you my age bracket, so I was bypassing it. I'm on the very edge of the baby boom. Yeah.
• 16:59
  Anyway. Yeah. And then they call them the silent generation, maybe because they're dying off 1925 to 1945. That's true. So what do we see that's going on in the different generations that you're seeing? Okay, right now, what is the current? We see the millennials, what's happening with them right now? And we are relating it to reading the word of God. Right. So millennials, the weekly reading rate, this is weekly in the Bible, is 50%.
• 17:24
  which is great. And most of them are men, are young men. Same with Gen Z is at 49%, which is great. Gen X is 41, and you boomers are losing it. You used to be the biggest and the best in writing. We were really booming. In reading and Bible. But no, you've gone down to 31%. So we've gotten complacent. So all right, boomers, it's time for us to rise up and get in the word.
• 17:54
  Only 9 to 11 percent of the general American population reads the Bible daily. That's a very small. It's unbelievable. Yeah. And, you know, I really don't understand that. I know a lot of churches have reading programs that they try to get their churches to acclimate themselves to getting used to reading in the Word.
• 18:16
  I don't understand why they're still, obviously they've been given the assignment, but they're not following through. Right. Well, I think you're a good example. Not that you don't read the Bible, but our schedules are so busy. We have made life so busy and full of things that...
• 18:31
  And technology. I can tell you when I read the Bible, if my phone is sitting next to me, it distracts me because it'll beep notifications and there's constant interruption and distraction. So it is an intentional thing that you have to say, God, I want to know you. It has to be a hunger from within. God, I want to know you. Let's have time together. Put your phone in a drawer in another room. Turn it off. Don't have anything distracting and just read. Read.
• 19:01
  you know, and then sit and listen. And like I do before I start, show me something. Show me something new I haven't seen and help me to apply it to my life. And that does make a difference. You have to do it intentionally. I have to do it in the morning. I always, if I get a busy morning going and I think, oh, I'll do it tonight, I'm too tired. And then I read a verse and
• 19:22
  and just grab it. I think it's the creating the pattern that we're talking about is finding a place where you can be consistent and that if we can be consistent and carving out that time, which means sometimes it's a sacrifice, you're going to literally have to change a pattern. You're going to have to either remove something and you got to move something out of the way to make room for an encounter with God. I think we need to have a mindset that this is for my good. This is God literally,
• 19:51
  The creator of heaven and earth wants to sit with me and talk with me. And he does that so well through his word. And when we can invite the Holy Spirit to be my teacher, right? That's who he is to be my teacher, that I know that I can go and I can like, and if I don't understand when I am reading something or I don't understand why something's in the Bible...
• 20:14
  I can put that off before the Lord and trust that at some point, he's going to help me understand something in the scripture that I'm reading. Right. The other thing I did when I started reading the Bible, I had never fasted. I mean, I'd like not be on Facebook for a month or something, but the real food fast. So it's like, okay, God, I will fast. And I had heard Miles Monroe talk about it. And he said, when you fast, drink water when you're hungry. And he said, every time you're supposed to eat or you would have been eating, read the Bible.
• 20:44
  So I was like, okay, I'll try it. I did a whole week, like just water. And it was amazing. Sacrifice means a lot. And we've developed like whole ministries about worship through music. Yes. But in the Old Testament, it was worship through sacrifice. That's how you worship God. So what do we sacrifice? What will we put down to give God even five minutes, 10 minutes, half hour? When you think about everything you fill your day with,
• 21:12
  And knowing what Jesus did for us, we should give him like the most of our day. Well, right there you're saying it is our gift of time. And your sacrifice and your fasting might be that you are carving out time that you don't think you have it. But really we do.
• 21:28
  It's you will fill it up or people will help to fill it up. I've found that too. When I have been laying down things, as soon as I've laid it down, I am finding that somebody else is helping to pick something up and making me go chase something down. And I'm like, OK, Lord. So I've learned even at that is I'm do not disturb on the phone so that I can carve out time I need to do regular things. Right. But then I just get up earlier in the morning because I want to meet with the Lord. Right.
• 21:57
  I want to know His voice in the morning because He sets the tone and the atmosphere for me for the day when I do that. Right. And I know that, you know, we have different ages of people and what they're walking through. But even there's times where you could even listen to the Bible.
• 22:14
  I know my husband, he goes for walks every day, and he actually listens to the Word. So he's way ahead of me because he keeps on listening to the Word. I'm like, well, that's not fair. But he will be taking that and listening when he's doing his walks. And then we have those conversations of what God's teaching us and showing us something new. I'm like, I hadn't heard that. I've read through that this year, but I missed that as well. And that's the beauty that we can share it with our friends and loved ones.
• 22:43
  And helping maybe encourage someone else, like, I should probably get into that a little bit more. Right. It's interesting that you brought that up. I have some more statistics, which I'm not a statistic person, but these were fascinating to me. This came from the research by the Center for Bible Engagement. Okay. So engaging with Scripture four or more days a week leads to dramatic positive changes in behavior and mental health compared to those who read it less often. Okay.
• 23:12
  And surprisingly enough, they said if you only read it one to three days a week, that it resulted in little or no difference in your life just compared to someone who doesn't. So it has to be four or more for this for these statistics. That's amazing. To be, you would think. I mean, you really think because like a lot of people, they would start out and they have started out and then they have quit or they've only done it one to three times. Right. Right.
• 23:37
  Yeah. So it's keeping that consistent pattern. And what is it? 21 days forms a habit. 21 days. Do it 21 days and then four days a week at least. It will be life changing. And if you can get and if you can grasp that, like if I do this, it will change who I am. It will bring miracles and it will, you know, I mean, when you think about how life transforming it is, why wouldn't you do it?
• 24:02
  Well, and I think that's our testimony, right? We've learned. It helps us to overcome things. We get inspired by the hope that we see when we're reading it. Like, wow, Lord, if you can do that, when I see God's hand work. And when I was reading the other day about God,
• 24:19
  Oh, God's people said that they ate and drank and had great joy when they were celebrating King Solomon becoming the king. I thought it said great joy. Like God wants to give us that. I thought because if he's doing it for them, he wants to do it for us today. Yeah. And the other thing, like I had never heard of the persistent widow. Yeah.
• 24:41
  So when I started reading, I'm like, wait a minute, if I just bug God enough, he's going to answer me? Like, it's true. It's in the Bible. And I was like, but we don't know that. It's like being given the keys to a car, but you don't know where the car is or where to put the key. Like, it's all in the Bible if we just see it and know, like, if we pray in his name and according to his will, he will answer us. Like, why wouldn't we do that? Why would we give up?
• 25:11
  Sure. And I think, though, too, I think it's what we are believing and what we're listening to because the enemy doesn't want us to go there. Right. So we're going to hear some thoughts and we're going to self-talk us down and we're going to allow life to happen. And we're going to have like authentic, no judgment. We've all had this. We have patterns of our lives where it's just so full and we're crowded out.
• 25:35
  But however, and God has grace for it, but like asking the Lord, and I've asked him about that when my life is that full. I invite you, Lord, how do I change the schedule so that he and I have that time together? I remember when we first met, you kept telling me, you know, it's okay to say no. It's okay to say no. And I had to learn that because I wanted to, I was a people pleaser, wanted to do everything for everybody, but we should want to put God first in all of that.
• 26:02
  You know, if I can't put God first in my day, then nobody else deserves my time. So good. It's huge. But anyway, here are the statistics. So if you read four or more times a week, loneliness drops 30 percent. Anger issues drops 32 percent. Bitterness in relationships drops 40 percent. Substance abuse drops 57 percent. Viewing pornography drops 60 percent.
• 26:29
  Sharing your faith increases 228% just because you read four times or more. That's amazing. I know. And scripture memorization increases 407%. I guess you can't memorize what you're not looking at. So yeah, it makes sense. It's true. And my mind, like I figured too, as I'm getting older is to sharpen my mind, I need to be more intentional to memorize scripture. Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:55
  And the Bible says to remind God of his word. If we remind him, he's faithful to do what he says he's going to do. So if you're not reading it, you don't know what to remind him of, right? Exactly.
• 27:08
  That's so good. It is. So he's been so faithful in so many things. And just my whole attitude about everything has changed. It's no longer, Dina, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's, Jesus, you love me so much. I just want to please you. And to please you means not to corrupt my life with whatever, you know. Right. And he walks you through that. And so I have lost...
• 27:33
  Of course, no one ever reaches perfection. We're all fallen and, yeah, we all have our thorn. So it's being open to correction by God because when he forges you, you come out better, right? It's so true. I mean, he has an opportunity because we are in a mindset, too, to be open to hearing from him.
• 27:52
  And how he really woos us towards the right things he wants us to do. And sometimes it's not even sin or it's just obeying him because for me or my personality, the Lord wants me to maybe carve out where I don't see or do certain things for a time because that's what he's calling me into. And so it really varies. It's about when you make yourself ready and you're willing to surrender, you know,
• 28:16
  to what he's asking of you, then there's something he's wanting to transform in us. It's so powerful. And it's staying teachable because you're never going to be there, wherever there is in your mind. Right. You know, I would love for us to look at tools and ways that we could help to really activate this into people that maybe they're struggling and maybe they're the one to three or...
• 28:39
  hit and miss from week to week. Right. Well, first of all, if you know it's going to transform, you'll want to do it, right? Exactly. I went with, well, I had an old Bible that had the Living Bible on one side and the King James, and I did not read the King James for it because I don't get the these and those. But the Living one was amazing because it put it in language that I understood, even some of the crazy stuff. But my newest one is the NLT Illustrated Study Bible. Wow.
• 29:07
  And I really like that. It has pictures for us visual people. So it tells about the plagues. I mean, it has pictures and charts and then it has beneath each one, like scholarly people who do know everything.
• 29:23
  It just takes you a little deeper and maybe like culturally understanding the times that the writings are. So really, there's moments where when I'm just reading the Bible, it's kind of fun to read some of those like, oh, that makes more sense. Maybe what they were doing because of culture or the season or where they were located.
• 29:41
  Something was happening. Right. And it was written to a different generation, but it was also written to our generation. But it helps with understanding if you can go back and know the original intent, which I never thought about growing up. I was like, it's just the Bible. It's supposed to speak to me. And it does. But there's so much more meaning and depth to it when you get into it. Exactly.
• 30:03
  So that's the one I read. I like it. What do you have? Well, and then I want to, one of the things you mentioned about when we will read something at least four times a week, I have a friend of ours named Kathleen Cook, and she has a book and it's called Hope for Today. And that was her whole premise of if you can just have...
• 30:24
  four times a week to start there and have a devotional where you can then read the devotional, then read the scripture, and then go into it more is just getting you in this pattern. It was to help to get people in that new frame of structure that helps you. So Kathleen's got a great devotional. It's a great thing. And like we've talked about, based on your timing, it's a great place to start.
• 30:53
  Find a Bible, like Dina was saying, that you can understand. I had, this was gifted to me through Hollywood Prayer Network, and it's called the Master Plan. It's the contemporary English version, and this has been really life-giving to me. It just...
• 31:09
  It gives you a fuller understanding when you're reading certain scriptures. Like, I never knew that until I read this translation. And then one that's really popular today, it's called, let's see, what is this one? I don't have my glasses on here. It's the Passion. So the Passion Bible, it's not the full Old and New Testament. Predominantly right now, it's the New Testament and I think Psalms and Proverbs. Yeah.
• 31:33
  A lot of people enjoy that. Again, it may not be like, I think you and I talked about, it may not be true to the Greek or the Hebrew, depending on if it's in the Old or New Testament, but it helps us to have a place where the Lord can use it to help us to have greater understanding of His Word. And I think one of the things, though, even...
• 31:52
  that I enjoy using as well is having like what you mentioned is like a commentary that's included in the Bible. So I was interested in this one. This is the ESV, which the English standard version. Yeah. But the one thing I liked about this was the archaeology study Bible. Yeah.
• 32:11
  So I'd taken a class last year or earlier in this year on archaeology. And now, you know, when you read through the Old Testament and you're seeing all of these different locations, like, I really don't know. But when I started creating, we had to do maps and I started to see the strategy of what God would do from city to city in locations and where he would send, you know, where the tabernacle would be or where the main city would be for Israel and that moving around.
• 32:41
  I could visually see it and made more sense. And so for me, I really like the archaeology because sometimes when you know strategically where the locations of things are,
• 32:52
  the scriptures come more alive and you have a little bit more understanding and then I can gain the idea of what may be more so of what God was teaching. Now, there's a lot more. There's the message. There's a voice. There's a New King James Version. There's American Amplified, American Standard. And like you said, Tim listens to you. I have a...
• 33:12
  a Bible app on my phone that plays, and it's a very entertaining voice. Right. And some of them even play music. But while I'm walking my dog or jogging or whatever, I have that playing. That's really good. And I have to say, I use the app called YouVersion. And when I'm in a rush and I'm driving, I literally put that on for the devotional. You can pick out even devotional plans on that. And I actually listen to it because when I do get...
• 33:38
  Crush for a little bit of time, I'm listening to him read the Word. And there's one translation, it's all women that do the Bible reading. So it's really good. Now, where would I get some of those Bibles? You can go to irrefresh.net, go to the very bottom, you'll see a link
• 33:56
  It's called christianbooks.com. And if you go to our link, you can do a search with some of the translations we talked about, or you can deep dive into it more. But it's the easy place to go to irafresh.net and explore where you can maybe pick up a copy that way.
• 34:11
  And we're all about prayer as well. And on the website, you have these awesome little cards. Exactly. They're called Love Notes from God. Love Notes from God. I use it as a bookmark, but it's there and they're wonderful things. So that's on the website too. And that's just a way to get us in a mindset of how do we, when we're in the midst of something,
• 34:31
  How can we pray God's word into our circumstances? And this was just one way that we have on our website under praying scriptures, where if you're worried or if you're stressed or if you're dealing with finances, we have over 40 topics where you can begin there and literally read the scriptures related to that particular thing you're walking through and believe God for them. Right. And we've seen lots of miracles from that too. It is great. It's life changing. It is.
• 35:01
  And another thing I do just to get it started, and maybe this will help some of our listeners, we all get ready in the morning. What can we do while we're getting ready? You can listen to the Bible like while you're in the shower or while you're getting ready. And so that might be a start for somebody. You can testify that it's really changed you. And it's really opened up your whole world for understanding that you may have heard verses before, but now...
• 35:25
  It's like the Holy Spirit has been teaching you and it's life-giving. Cheryl, I have a great idea. What's that? Let's do a 21-day challenge. Yes. So what we want is for you guys to join us in 21 days of reading the Bible, four days a week minimum. You can do more. We're going to post for those 21 days what we learned. And then on our Facebook page, you can post what you learned. We'd love to have your input and know what you're learning because we know your life will be changed, right? Excellent. We'll see you there.
• 35:54
  If this episode encouraged you, don't let it end here. Open your Bible, seek God's heart, and discover the life-changing power of His promises for yourself. Until next time, keep pursuing the God who changes everything.