Application

Top Previous Next  Index
Download "How to Study the Bible"

Application begins during your study but continues on into your day-to-day living. Bible study without application becomes a stale, intellectual exercise, like sitting in a car without fuel you will not go anywhere. Your spiritual growth will not occur by merely reading the Bible, its truths must be acted out. Do not rush into application until you are sure what the passage says and means, then adjust your life accordingly. Take steps also to measure your application, evaluate your progress and make the necessary changes in your application. If you are unable to apply the passage, try asking yourself these questions:

1.Is there a command for me to obey?
2.Is there a good example for me to follow?
3.Is there a sin here for me to avoid?
4.Is there something here I want to thank God for?
5.Is there a promise I can call my own?
6.Is there a blessing I can enjoy?
7.Is there a failure from which I can learn?
8.Is there a victory for me to win?
9.Is there a new thought about God, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Satan, man?
10.Is there a truth in this passage that has greatly affected me?

Remember during your study the words of Jesus:

“Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man, who built his house on a rock. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine, and doesn’t do them will be like a foolish man, who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

Matthew 7:24-27

This is a clear warning to all who would learn the Bible that its teaching is for application into one’s life in order that that life may be build upon the Solid Rock. It is important to allow change to occur as we read the Bible else we become like the man who built his house on the sand, we hear the words of God but fail to take heed of them and so our life is lost in the storm. Some of the study methods that follow will give you opportunity to note various applications and provide for you to be able to evaluate you application after a certain period of time. If you will follow those prompts you will be able to allow God to change your life through you times of fellowship with Him in the study of His word.

As you begin to apply what you are learning through your Bible studies you will find that you have made some progress toward change in a certain aspect of your life. At this point you may be tempted to stop this particular application process and carry on with an other application. Don’t. There may always be room for improvement, as Paul has said in his letter to the church in Philippi:

Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:12

If you have been prompted by the Holy Spirit toward some change in your life, or He is leading you through such a change, you must not be satisfied with the fact that you may no longer be doing the worst of what the Holy Spirit is leading you away from while continuing to do the less bad aspects of this thing. When God comes to change us He is asking that we eliminate all within us that is contrary to His will, not merely the worst of it.