The American Bible Society is a Christian Ministry that seeks to engage people with GOD’S Word and has been doing so for as far back as 1816. Every year they take it upon themselves to conduct a research that reveals Bible behavior, perception and engagement among American adults. In March this year, they released results that included statistics based on how necessary the Bible was in the daily lives of those that they interviewed, and the findings were not encouraging.
The participants were given four choices (the Bible, coffee, something sweet and social media) and were asked to choose which one they felt was a daily necessity. A whopping 37% of participants chose coffee as their daily necessity, followed by 28% for the something sweet crowd, 19 % choose social media, and trailing behind at 16% were those who felt that the Bible was the most important aspect of their day.
The study showed that those who were most likely to choose the Bible were households with children under the age of 18, college graduates, married adults and residents of the South.
61% of adults identified as ‘Bible Centered’ choose the Bible over the other three choices, Bible Engaged adults came in at 43%, with the Bible Friendly adults coming in last at 21%.
Now, I’ve got to wonder about the other 39% of the Bible Centred adults. It seems that coffee, followed by social media and lastly something sweet was more important to them than starting their day with GOD. Which begs the question: do they not understand that it is how you start the day that sets the tone for the rest of the day? Coffee is not going to give you comfort when a problem crops up, social media is not going to do a good job of guiding you throughout your day, and something sweet is not going to satisfy your spiritual needs. Only GOD can do all of these things and more, but if we do not take the time to spend the start of our day with Him, we are cheating ourselves and replacing Him with choices that do not give life. Sure, coffee is a delicious beverage that has the ability to jolt you out of drowsiness, social media can have some inspiring words (especially if you follow sites such as Godinterest:)), and something sweet (who doesn’t enjoy a croissant with jam and butter?) is a momentarily satisfying taste sensation. However, if you put GOD first, and then followed with the rest of these choices, your day will be even better – I guarantee you that!
If you were honest with yourself, what would you have chosen? Are you God-centered? I believe that we ought to all examine ourselves and identify our level of obedience to GOD because let me tell you, our GOD is an all-or-nothing type of ‘Person’, you’re either with Him all the way, or you’re against Him – there is no grey area. Don’t let the comforts of this world distract you from your walk with GOD – you were bought at a high price, do not think that you own yourselves? With all the love in my heart for my fellow Believers, do not make the mistake of choosing the world over GOD, it only leads to death.
