Struggling to Stay in the Word? Simple Ways to Make Scripture a Daily Habit with Philip Nation

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Hi.

Today on the podcast I would like to welcome our guest, Philip Nation.

He is coming to us from Thomas Nelson Bibles.

He's a Vice President and publisher.

He's also served as a pastor, a church planter and education minister in local churches.

He frequently travels to speak in churches and for conferences.

And Philip earned his Doctor of Ministry from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He's authored and edited numerous books and Bible studies and he is a University fellow for Arizona Christian University and has been a professor at Union University in HU Houston Christian University.

But I am excited for him to join us today because with all of his background in pastoring and working in the publishing, publishing industry, just to encourage us in our faith, encourage us in getting into God's Word.

He just brings so much perspective and ideas, practical ideas for us on how can we deepen our faith, how can we deepen our time in God's presence and in getting in the Word?

And why is this so important to our daily walk?

So I cannot wait to have this conversation and share that with you today.

So welcome Philip.

Well, thank you so much Kristen.

That is a very kind introduction and so I appreciate all of that and just excited to have have this conversation for people to listen into with us today to talk about just that.

How do we deepen our fellowship with Christ and our in our engagement with the Word of God.

Love it.

So first, can you just share with us a little bit about what I didn't share right in your bio?

What does life look like?

What does your walk look looked like and why do you do the work you do?

Oh well that's a, that's a short question that has a really long answer but I'll keep it as brief as possible.

So I am a happy Christian is what I try to live by now.

I have my grumpy moments and such as that, but I am just happy to be a Christian and came to Faith in Christ at a young age and raised by Christian parents and was always very active in church.

And the way that life looks like now, many, many years later is that my wife Angie and I have been married for 31 years.

We have two sons that are both grown and in their late 20s, and both of them are married.

And one of our sons, he and his wife have two kiddos.

And so we have entered into the grandparenting stage, which is just fun in all sorts of different ways.

And as you mentioned, in terms of like my bio, God has been so gracious to me that he's allowed me to serve as a pastor, as an associate pastor, I've worked in established churches, we've planted a church, we've worked in church revitalizations.

And now over the last 15 years, it's been a combination of bivocational pastoring and itinerant ministry of preaching, along with this work in Christian publishing.

And so these days, over the last five and a half years, I've been a Bible publisher, which is just one of the best things that you can possibly imagine.

It's hard, it's complex work, but it is so rewarding that I get to wake up every morning to help more Bibles get out into the world.

So cool.

I love it.

Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, you know.

Well, one thing I'll just say right off the bat, that just kind of hit me as I was looking through more of the open Bible and I have some.

So in case people don't know, one of the main Bibles that you all publish, you publish other Bibles, of course, is the open Bible.

And the reason I bring that up is it's a study or a study and reference Bible.

Is that how you would describe it?

And I have several study Bibles.

But I can tell you that when I was younger, I might have had a study Bible in the house, but it wasn't something that I sought out.

But I will tell you, once you kind of go there, it's hard to go back.

And I say that because how many times have some of us maybe or maybe still opened a Bible and the font is tiny and you're just kind of showing up unless you're doing a Bible study and there's not any context with it if you're not somebody that went to seminary or maybe you haven't done a lot of in depth Bible studies before.

And so I would just say off the bat that if you've never considered looking at a study Bible or a reference Bible, they really are powerful.

And I, you know, have one or two at this point.

And I do enjoy them because it really does help me understand more the context, you know, and what the themes are and things like that.

So I only share that because for some people they might think, oh, you know, Bible Bibles are good and in any way we get them.

But I think sometimes in our modern times it can be hard to break it down.

Right.

Like what does this mean to me?

What is it actually saying, you know, who is this connected to?

And so for any of you like that, I would just say you might check out a study Bible, pop by a bookstore I know later we're going to talk about, you can check out a free excerpt or you know, one of the books of the Bible.

But I just share that because I have found that it's very helpful in my walk with faith.

Oh, I obviously I agree because this is what I've chosen to do like for a living.

I want to invest myself here because I think that you're exactly right at, at Thomas Nelson Bibles.

It was back in the late 70s that they commissioned a translation team that put together that was then published in the early 80s, the new king James version of the Bible.

So that's the main translation that we publish.

And so to give your listeners, this little factoid will help to set a groundwork for everything that you just said.

The bible in the NKJV translation is 771,569 words.

I mean it is a daunting task.

It is generally three times longer than any novel that any of us are going to ever read.

So yes, if you can find that study Bible edition, that one that has extra notes and cross references and a concordance and commentary, that will be that assistant to you as you study through God's Word.

Obviously I wholeheartedly endorse that, which is why we publish things like the Open Bible, the NKJV study Bible, you know, and a litany of other study Bibles that I could list from teams of contributors down to one major contributor.

These are very helpful because it is, it is a beautiful gift that God has given us.

This self revelation of who he is, this perfect and preserved word of God.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be easy to figure out, well, what did he mean when he said that in Leviticus?

What is this story over here in Malachi?

It's great to have these helps along with us.

Absolutely.

So before we dig into how might we deepen or actually in our own faith walk, how might we use the Bible more regularly or really dig into it in a deeper way, why don't you share with us a little bit about, you know, what has the Bible, what is your daily Practice with, you know, reading the Bible or doing a Bible study.

What has that, how's that impacted your life?

And it's a great question that, that helps to like, pull the veil back on, on my heart.

And I hope that your, your listeners will reflect on that same question as well so that they can revisit what it is that God has been doing.

Again.

As I said earlier, I was.

I came to Faith in Christ at an early age and was raised by my mom and dad believers.

And we were in a healthy church that, that encouraged us to have a private devotional life.

So even as a teenager, this is a regular habit in my life to read the Word and to pray.

And the more that I have read the Word, the more informed I feel like my prayer life has become.

So that it allows me to not just rattle off my daily list of God, this is how, this is what I want you to do during my day, but instead to pause and say, okay, God, before I ask for anything, let me ask you, what is the anything I should ask for?

So it guides my prayer life.

It has helped me, I hope, I trust, to have grown more deeply in a sense of faith that in the difficult days, God, that I don't have to worry and fret.

I still do worry and fret because we're human.

But also in the really great days, it allows me a deeper joy.

And so the daily engagement with Scripture, which has changed the way it looks over the years, it simply brings about a sense of peace and hopefulness in my daily chores and in my daily work and in my daily relationships that I just absolutely believe would be totally absent were it not for how God is speaking to us through His Word.

Absolutely.

I'm not going to say this exactly right, but I like one of the things Mark Batterson, I think it was in Chase the Lion, said, but he basically says, when you get in the Word, the Word gets inside of you.

Right.

In other words, yes, it's important to read the Word, but it's because the more we do it, the more regularly we do it, it actually is within us, right.

It's not just, oh, I read it.

I read a devotional one time two months ago.

And that's okay, like, we have to start somewhere, but it's because it actually gets into us.

So the more we read it, the more we interact with it, we actually.

It's being breathed into us, right?

And so it's, it's so important.

And I'm with you.

I have had seasons and days where I don't get in the, like something happens and I miss a day or a week of getting in the prayer.

Coming into the Word daily, maybe not.

I'll still be praying.

And those days are different than the days that I got in the Word.

I have more patience, I have a longer, you know, I don't have a short fuse.

I mean, it doesn't mean things don't happen, but like I can tell a difference that the Spirit is within me in a different way when I am more consistent with my time with God.

Absolutely.

And it, it's part of even what Jesus prayed for us about.

When you go into the gospel of.

And you find yourself over In John chapter 17, this is the lengthiest prayer that we have recorded from Jesus.

It's often referred to as the high priestly prayer.

And in that prayer he asked the Father to sanctify his believers by the truth.

This is the work that he wants done with the Word of God, is that we would be brought into a, a life of holiness, of being set apart.

And, and just as, as you quote Batterson, it is so true that it is the work that God does that the more we are in the Word, the more it's going to be us.

And then as we follow faithfully, it is that Psalm 119 principle of I want to hide God's Word in my heart so I won't sin against Him.

It's a defensive mechanism so that we can put off sin.

And it is this offensive work that God does in our life of sanctifying us, of making us holy, of molding us to look like Christ by His Word.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And so before we dig into some specifics, what would you just say about that though too is, you know.

Right.

We're called that every day, you know, a renewal of the mind.

And so that kind of speaks to.

Why would we daily get into His Word, you know, so how would you tie that to what it does to us fresh every day, you know, and renewing us.

Yeah.

In terms of renewing us, I think that it is also that work that the New Testament speaks about, of taking on the mind of Christ.

You and I come into every day with a certain lens by which we're going to look at the rest of the world.

A lens by which we view ourselves, our spouses, our children, our friends, our co workers, that this is the way we look at the world.

And we're born with very human, selfish lenses.

And so it becomes a what, what are all you people going to do for me today?

And by the renewing of our minds, we're able to see the world through the kingdom of God's lens.

We're able to see people in the way that Christ sees them, as these are all people that are candidates for redemption.

And, and so then how do I.

So engaging God's word in it, renewing my mind, it helps me to relate to God's creation and all of the people of creation in a way that is reflective of the Gospel.

And then in renewing our mind, I'll say also that it helps us to put off the things of the flesh.

It helps us to see clearly what is worth my energies and my times and my life versus the things which are worthy of what Christ has done for us.

And so it helps me to despise sin the same way that Christ does.

It helps me to love Godliness in the same way that Christ does.

And so this renewing of the mind does an internal work of forming our souls and it does that exterior work of what do we do with our hands and our feet day by day.

Yeah, well, I love how you explain that, so thank you for sharing that.

Okay, so let's dig into, you know, if people, some, some of the listeners probably have a daily practice that might be reading a devotional, it might be doing Bible studies.

There's other, other listeners that probably have done it before.

Right, Bible studies, but they don't.

You don't do it daily.

And then there's probably some listeners that daily get in the Word whether they're doing a study or not.

So what would you just share with us on how can we engage and what are some strategies that we can use to make Bible engagement more meaningful and to get more consistent with it?

Yeah, and consistency, I think is such a key as to what kind of process can you get into in this season of your life that will gain consistency which will change depending on another season of your life.

And so one of the first things that I tell people is to start thinking about what kind of season of life are you in right now?

Exactly how intensive do you need to go right now in terms of time intensity and commitment?

And allow yourself the grace that if you're a busy mom with two toddlers in the house and a part time job and your husband's working full time and everything's kind of a wreck, that's going to look a lot different than a retired man in his 70s who has decided for the very first time he's going to start reading the scripture.

So what kind of season of life are you in in Terms of what can, what can you take in?

But I think for all of us, there are Bible reading plans and there are topical surveys or studies that I think are going to be helpful for just about anyone.

But keep in mind, and bear in mind these plans are not the end unto themselves.

Your goal is not to finish the plan.

Your goal is to meet the God of the Word.

And so there are going to be some days where you're going to start your reading plan and it's going to call for three chapters and you're going to be four verses in, and there's going to be something that is going to absolutely land squarely on your heart where you just need to pause your reading and just let that be it for the day because the Spirit's trying to teach you something from his word.

But I do think that it is a good practice to have a plan and at least a short term date set.

I'm going to do this plan for this many weeks, and if this plan's not working, then I'm going to find another plan.

But make a commitment to a plan and to a time frame so that you can get some momentum going for yourself, so that you can build consistency and then just do short plan, short time frame.

Just keep stacking those on top of each other.

I read one book where it says, you know, success comes from building streaks.

So build streaks of Bible reading on a daily basis so that then after a while you look back and say, oh, you know, God really has done this in my life.

And so find a reading plan or find a topical series to read through, whether it's on grace or mercy or hope or forgiveness.

Yeah, yeah.

So good.

Yeah, I think that's, that's important.

And what about if we're someone that has struggled to just make the time, even if it's five minutes, like, how can we.

What are some ways that we might be able to set ourselves up for success?

And I get it.

Like, there's no, we're not saying any of us failed if we don't get to it today.

Right?

Like, I've had those days where it's just not happening.

Or I, you know, had.

I remember what it was like when my kids were really little.

And you know, they're not now, but so.

And I have more, more flexibility, more time now.

But, you know, the honest truth though is like you said, having a plan helps.

Having something that pops up daily that says, you know, this is for some of us, we just know, okay, when I wake up in the morning after I Get my coffee or after this I'm going to do it.

And other people, they just feel like they have, they can't even see when they're going to fit that in.

And so for people like that, I think it's, you know, what would you recommend?

Is it, is it putting a reminder?

Is it having like the apps where it just tells you every day like hey it's 7:40 or 6:40, you know, don't forget to do the Bible study or devotional, whatever it is you're going to fit in, you know, but I think we can fit it in less time too.

Oh absolutely.

And I'll say I have a great deal of sympathy for that kind of life because honestly that's the kind of life I feel like I, I lead.

I, I work for a very large company, it's a big for profit global company where when I wake up in the morning, there are emails waiting for me and when I finish work late into the day, emails are still waiting for me there.

There's never an end to the projects.

I, I completely understand that.

Go, go, go.

Fast pace of life.

So, so here are some recommendations I would make.

Number one, you mentioned it.

I think reminders finding, whether it's a digital reminder or an analog reminder of a post it note, finding the ways that you are best reminded to pause your day, to pause the busyness of your day in order to enter into the intimacy with Christ of some Bible reading and some prayer, whatever it is that works for you in terms of the reminder, then go do that.

And not everybody's reminders work for everyone.

So find the one that it works for you.

Secondly, I would say that you should take a quick assessment.

For most people this is not going to take much time, but what are the time wasters of your day?

What are the things that you can set down in order to pick up your script, to pick up the Bible?

You know, what is it, is it that you watch that you kind of just mindlessly kind of watch too much news in the morning before you leave for work?

Is it that at night you find yourself binging through two and a half hours of your favorite television show and you could cut that back very easily from five episodes to four episodes?

What is it that you're finding in your life that is consuming your time, that you'd rather it be consumed with the scripture?

And the third tip that I'd give is you should not do this alone.

Whether you're married, single, whether you're young or old, this should not be something you do alone.

You have somebody in your life, it's either somebody in your family or it's someone who is in a Bible study group or somebody at your church.

You likely have someone who could become the person that you say to them, even if they don't live in your own household, hey, every day let's send a text to each other that all it says is one sentence.

We text anyway every day.

Let's commit that at such and such time during the day we're going to text each other the one sentence of one thing that we heard from the scripture today.

And just let that use a simple, like not heavy handed or egregiously large accountability process, but it just becomes that celebratory text or call or check in or quick conversation that you have every day with that other person that you trust that you get to start celebrating what each other is doing, learning from the Lord.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that.

I agree with you.

I mean having community or, and accountability is so important.

And if somebody really says, well, I don't really have someone like that in my life and that's okay because some people do feel like they're in that season.

I would just remind you that there are apps like this, the Bible study, the Bible apps or devotional apps.

They often have a community or you can join part of one of those groups, right, to go through a plan and that is community.

So if you don't feel like you have somebody you can directly text or at your church, maybe you, you didn't want to join one of their studies or maybe you're in between churches, you can do those as well, right?

In other words, there is a way, regardless of, you know, if you think you can text someone directly.

But I love that.

And the other thing I'd say is if somebody says, well, you know, I just don't feel I have the time.

Like you said, maybe they're, they work two jobs or they're caring for, you know, littles.

There's also audio.

You know, of course I think reading the written word is quite important and exceptional some of the time.

But you know, you can also do an audio.

You can get through Bible plan using audio, right?

You can do audio.

So if somebody says, but I do go on a walk or I am driving in my car, well, that is an option.

If you find you can't sit down and get in the word.

Right.

You can do it in your car or on the train with your earbuds in or whatever it might be.

Oh, absolutely.

The old phrase embarrassment of riches we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the forms of the scripture that are available to us in the English language.

From little pocket size text Bibles to all of the digital forms of them, to all of the big beefy study Bibles.

They're everywhere on apps and websites and can sit in your lap or hold in the palm of your hand.

And so there is an opportunity for all of us to engage the word, even for the busiest among us.

And it just comes down to how and when am I going to do this.

There's a great story that Ruth Graham, the wife of evangelist Billy Graham told about when her children were very young and, and Dr.

Graham was on the road all of the time, preaching all over the country and all over the world that when she was at her busiest, she just simply left an open Bible out on her kitchen table to the chapter that she was in next so that she could just pause in the middle of the day, whether she was cooking or moving in between kids or moving in between chores, where she could just pause for a few moments and let her eyes fall onto the scripture and take in a verse or two.

And so it just becomes, is it important enough for you to find that place in your life and the more you allow it to find that place in your life, the more of a place you will let it have in your life?

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that example up because when you were talking a few minutes ago, I was going to share it and then it thought passed through, but it was that I leave my study Bible opened, you know, to, to where I'm at in my bedroom, I have a chair in there and then in my office I have a devotional.

And so it's so I visually see them.

Right.

And because if I don't, I have put my Bible away sometimes daily.

And I have to be honest, when I don't see the reminder, sometimes it doesn't click as quickly.

You know, like when I see it I'm like, oh yeah, right, I gotta go do that in a minute.

Or.

But when we put things away, almost too tidy.

So I'm with you sometimes leaving it wherever it's a space that you can do that, whether it's on your kitchen table or you have a quiet little area, but having it available to you, right.

Because if we put it away on the bookshelf, it's like many other things or you know, you put the healthy food in the fridge and you never see it again.

Right.

If you don't make it pretty and easy to get to.

So I think that's important that you pointed that out, that, you know, having it so we notice it, we remember.

Oh, yeah.

I wanted to, even if I only had a minute, right.

To read one passage or something like that.

So, yeah, I think that's important.

And this is why I think that physical Bibles, obviously, I love physical Bibles.

It's why I think that they're also helpful as a very, very, very secondary kind of idea that we leave it out as a visual reminder for us.

But in our homes, we display the things that are most important to us.

And so having that copy of God's Word on your coffee table, on your bedside table, in those places where you are in the house, it is a reminder that this is a very.

That.

That I.

I hold this in high esteem, that this is important to me.

So make it that important thing.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I love sometimes, you know, the quotes or the memes and they, you know.

But it basically says, what if we carry it around our Bible as much as we carry around looking at our iPhones, like our smartphones, you know, and it's like, it's kind of true.

Right.

We carry these devices at all times that much of the time we aren't looking at, you know, the Word.

I mean, I do have a Bible app and a divisional app on my phone, but, you know, I'm not sitting in that all the time.

Right.

And so I think it's.

To your point, it's that if it's important to us or if we want it to become more important in our lives, we do have to have it near God.

Absolutely.

So, so good.

So let me ask you, how have you found.

And how do you encourage people to use the Bible and getting in the Word regularly as we go about life, making daily decisions?

You know, you sort of alluded to that earlier, but how can you just encourage us in that way?

Yeah, Again, this is where the work that I.

That I get to do is so much fun of being someone who publishes Bible.

And I've kind of been in the know about Bible types for a long time because of being in ministry and having all sorts of study Bibles.

And these two things tie together because there is consistency, there is a sense of completeness that I want to encourage everyone that you should put it as your aim and goal to read the entirety of the Bible.

Now you might want to start with the entirety of the four Gospels and then expand that out to be the entirety of the New Testament and then go read the entirety of, you know, the different genres that are in the Old Testament.

But I think that we need to aim toward having a complete reading of the Bible so that we can put everything down into context.

That will help us to keep.

That will keep us from cherry picking verses here and there and plucking them out of context and using them in a way that it's like, well, that's not what that meant.

And we've kind of conspired with our flesh to make it mean something else so we can get away with something.

And so I would encourage, you know, have a complete reading of the Bible and a reading plan will help you.

We had mentioned several minutes ago the idea of like this one edition that we've published for a long time, the open Bible.

And part of what you'll find in a lot of these study Bibles are there are reading plans not just through the entire Bible, but reading plans where it's like 60 days to meet Jesus, 90 days to read through the New Testament.

Or there's also these topical guides where if you are struggling and this is something that maybe you didn't realize was in a Bible that you have or that you could buy that maybe you're struggling right now with forgiveness or anxiety or there's a particular sin that the temptation is crouching at your door or just you're just worried about the chaos that the world is perpetually in, you can go to a topical index and find that idea to then see where is it covered in Scripture and just make it your reading plan for a little while that every day you're just going to work through that topical plan of.

Okay, this was the next verse or this was the next passage in the list about, you know, forgiveness.

Because I'm having.

I'm struggling with this friend of mine or I'm struggling with this parent that I have in my life that I love, but I can't forgive him.

And so work through one of those.

And the open Bible has the largest topical index of any study.

Bible is about 300 pages in length.

So anything that you're looking for, you can find that idea of where does it pop up in the scriptures.

Yeah, it's super helpful.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

So that made me think, what, what can you just share how.

Why getting in the word every day is literally letting us put on guard God's armor.

Yeah.

So that whole idea of the armor of God passage from the Apostle Paul helps us to see that it's got to be a holistic process in our life.

From the helmet of salvation all the way down to our feet that are fitted with the shoes that are the gospel of peace.

And then taking with us the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God being fully fit together.

You need that, I need that.

Because this world that we live in is perpetually Babylon.

We do not have home field advantage.

And so everything in this world that is broken is conspiring both against you and your spiritual growth along with it is conspiring against the good news of Jesus Christ.

And so we need to be in the Word, hiding it in our heart, allowing it to do its work in our lives.

Because in general, everything that we're going to face is going to be something that is set up against God, against his kingdom.

And so we're sent as ambassadors and as missionaries into this world, and we've got to do so with the truth of God's word.

Otherwise we will be overwhelmed by deception, overwhelmed by vain philosophies and by godless myths and as it says in one passage, old wives tales, you know, which is, you know, just the idea that we're just kind of babbling along without any real reasoning.

And so you and I need the scripture in order to face down the darkness that is around us and then to help equip our friends that are believers, our children that maybe yet are not yet believers, but we want to guide them to it and to rescue people out of their lost state by the good news of Christ.

Absolutely.

And I love that you said that and added that because I have three high school and college age young, young men in my house.

So, so I'm.

Yeah, I'm very familiar with that walk, you know, as you can say at this moment.

So, you know, besides the armor of God, I mean, I guess one of the things I think sometimes we as believers forget is that there are so many promises and so many blessings in the Bible that are also offered to us today.

And so would you just add anything about that when we get in the Word and when we can read those and pray on those things?

Right, we can.

You know, how does that transform those prayers over us, whether we see them today or, you know, down the road, generations to come, that sort of thing?

Oh, absolutely.

I.

One that comes to mind for me is in the last chapter of Hosea in the Old Testament, which is this, this kind of un.

Unusual tale to begin with.

And then in the last chapter of Hosea, God says about his rebellious people, he said, I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.

And Those kind of promises of blessings from God reshape how I live.

They.

They often reshape my own internal monologue of how quickly I heap.

There's a lot of guilt and shame and I'm not good enough and I didn't get enough done today and how is it that God puts up with me kind of attitudes.

Many years ago I heard it referred to as a worm theology.

Though I'm just a worm in the dirt, how could God possibly love me?

And But a promise like that from Hosea, where God says, I'm going to heal your waywardness, I'm going to love you freely because my anchor's turned away from you.

Those kind of promises that we hear from God, the I will never leave you nor forsake you.

You can come to me when you're.

When you're burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

You can take my yoke upon you, because my burden is light.

Those promises let me know that God is intimately concerned about me, little old me as a human, that he loves me.

He loves us in our totality of humanity, but he loves me and he has his eye on me.

And he has a concern, a redemptive concern for me.

Those promises that they are the things which breathe life into our faith.

So good.

Okay, so let me ask you what would you just like to share last couple of questions with us about maybe how the Open Bible has impacted you or someone you know or just anything else you want to share about it with the audience.

Yeah.

So the.

I have a long history with the Open Bible.

It was one of the very first study editions that I received.

An aunt and uncle gave me a copy of it when I was 17 years old.

I felt God calling me to ministry when I was 15.

I preached my first sermon when I was 16.

Why in the world my home church would let loose a 16 year old in the pulpit?

But they did and it's turned out okay so far.

And then this very kind aunt and uncle in my life gave me a copy of the Open Bible which now our company has been publishing for 50 years and it's gone through different updates and revisions.

And so just this year we have released the 50th anniversary edition of it.

But what's been so helpful for me in it has been just the ease at which you can navigate through the notes that there are these doctrinal and application notes that just chain link together through the Scriptures so that I can see the unified nature of God's word, that when it is A doctrine like the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, that that's not something that we just find like in a vacuum at Acts chapter 2, but that the Holy Spirit was at work in creation and we can watch as he is revealed to us throughout all of Scripture or the whole issue of, you know, what does it look like to be a witness of God's message of redemption.

That again, it's not just something that shows up in Matthew 28 and that's it, but rather that this is a work.

And so the open Bible has got these beautiful chain referenced kind of notes throughout it that I just love to dig into.

And it helps me to, to see the totality of what God's doing in our lives.

Well, it's much like you hear the concept that there's always a bigger work within us.

Right.

God is, is writing a bigger story than what we can understand today in our own lives.

But that is what the Bible is.

Right.

It's so interconnected.

And I, I've seen the graphic.

I don't think it's necessarily in your Bible.

I mean, you might have a version of it, but you know, where it looks kind of like it's different.

It looks like the rainbow, all the.

Connections like the rainbow.

Right.

And it's, but it's kind of a neat visual because it connects from the beginning, you know, Genesis and the Old Testament all the way to the end, I mean, of the Bible.

But it's.

All the colors connect, but it looks like a big rainbow of lines of connection.

It's, it's a neat visual to kind of get what you're saying.

Absolutely.

And, and with most of our Bibles, a lot of our Bibles, they come with a set of cross references.

So when you're reading one verse, it'll give you a reference to another place in the Bible that helps you to see.

Here's where this same idea shows up again and again.

And in this latest iteration of the Open Bible we have what's called an end of verse reference system, where at the end of most verses there's a reference to another verse in the Bible, usually in a completely other book of the Bible where you go there and you go, oh, this is where this idea shows up again.

And so just being able to allow the scripture, to interpret scripture so that God can speak so fully to us about, about who he is, about the truth that he has put in front of us and how he's, he's molding us and changing us.

It's a beautiful gift to be able.

To have that's great.

So let me ask you, is there any.

Do you have a favorite scripture or a scripture that you feel like is kind of the scripture, the biggest scripture for your life, you know, that you're, that you're called to.

Yeah, I, there is.

And I would say these things probably change and, you know, a little bit over time for a while.

The verse I quoted earlier, Hosea 14, 4, it was it for a while.

Zephaniah 317 is another favorite verse of mine.

But probably over these last few years, as God has just tried to, he's done his work of, of just continuously molding and working on me.

It was a verse that came about to kind of a high point in my life a number of years ago because, and it really was because of a, of a book I wrote that it became a theme verse for that book.

And it's in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 14, where the verse starts.

For the love of Christ compels us.

And just that phrase out of that verse has set so many things in order for me because it goes on to say, because if we judge it thus, that if one died for all, then all died.

And then the next verse goes on to talk about that if he died and he, he was raised and we're all going to be, you know, we're all going to find ourselves in resurrection power.

But it is that first part of that phrase.

For the love of Christ compels us.

Has God.

God needs to.

And has continued to do deep work in my heart about that.

Good.

Okay.

So what is fueling you up these days?

Is there anything in your life that's just, you know, helping you just in appreciate life more or just really live to your fullest and enjoy joy life?

Yeah, the thing I'll say.

And, and if other people are grandparents, they'll nod their heads while they're.

They're listening.

It is my, my granddaughter and my grandson.

My wife Angie and I have made kind of the crazy decision that we're going to live in between two cities because we have one son and his wife that are in Tennessee, and our other son and his wife and their children are in Nebraska.

And so we are just embracing kind of a vagabond existence and a crazy kind of schedule because those two little ones just are reminding me of just how great life is.

New life was great before.

Angie and I have a fun marriage.

We have a fun relationship with our sons and their wives.

We love those girls, but those two little ones are just the wind in our sails.

Right now.

I love it.

That's so great.

All right, Any last words of encouragement before we wrap up that you'd like to share?

Yeah, I just want to encourage your listeners that wherever it is that you find yourself in terms of engaging your faith and engaging in God's word, the Bible tells us that his mercies are new every morning.

And so you can drop off what went wrong yesterday out the back door and just go into this day with the thought that his mercies are new today.

And so I can re enjoy what it is that God has been and wants to do in my life.

And that may start with just a few verses of reading the Scripture.

And if that's what you do today, that's awesome.

Go read those few verses of scripture and allow the Lord of the universe to be the personal savior of your heart.

Let him be the one who is redeeming and renewing all things.

The only thing I'd add to that is I don't know if this is true for all people.

And of course, I think getting in the Word, obviously, that is right.

The.

The book that can.

Can guide our lives.

And for us, it is.

I would also say sometimes reading other Christian books that reference scripture sometimes lets me put things in different contexts, and then it makes me more excited to go read scripture where that's found.

And so I would just say to somebody, if you found that you're not making time for the Word as much as you like, sometimes going and finding an author that maybe speaks on a topic that you're interested in, for me, that.

That just has other stories, it has other context, it might have difficult stories in it, but then that helps me want to then go learn more about the Bible.

So I find that.

That.

So reading more things, right?

Not just the Bible, but other Christian resources, Christian books, inspirational books, things like that.

Absolutely.

And I've dedicated myself to reading as much as I can, but then doing some writing myself.

A number of years ago, I wrote a book called Habits for Our Holiness.

And in it there's a chapter about Bible study where a little part of that chapter is six questions you can ask about any passage to better understand it.

And so I'm completely in there with you that authors are friends along the way, that we want to help you on your journey.

We want to do what we can to point you to Christ and give you those tools in your life to where you can walk more faithfully.

I love it.

That's awesome.

Okay, so last thing, why don't you share with us where people can learn more about you or in the Open Bible or whatever you'd like to share.

Where would you like to direct them?

Yeah, absolutely.

If you want to learn more about the Open Bible and everything that we're doing, just go to Thomas Nelson bibles.com and there you can search through the various different English translations that we publish and all the different editions and you'll find a whole page there about the Open Bible where you can download a sampler so that you can see the interior.

What is this Bible all about?

What are the tools that are inside of this Bible?

I would encourage them to go do that.

And then you can find me on all the socials.

Just put the search put in the search bar Philip Nation Philip with one L Nation no s and you'll find me.

And I'm always happy to interact with people in terms of where they are on their faith journey and how I can be an encouragement to you.

I love it.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, sharing with us just about, you know, how can we deepen our faith?

How can we continue on our faith journey no matter where we're at?

And just sharing some of your personal stories as well.

Glad to do it.

Thanks so much, Kristin.

Thank you.

As I wrap up today's episode, I just want to share a quote with you and then also scripture or two.

It will just help you in the conversation we just had about why we want to make a consistent time to get in God's presence, why we want to consistently get in His Word, and why doing a Bible study and reading the entire Bible at least once is.

So important for us.

So I love what Rachel Booth Smith says.

She is one of the many different contributors to the first five devotional series.

She says Scripture highlights the delight God has in us, the blessings he longs to bestow on us, and the purpose he has for us.

And I think that just beautifully illustrates.

What we talked about in the conversation today.

Right when we get in God's Word, he wants to remind us of the relationship he wants to have with each.

Of us as all, all of us.

But also independently, each one of us.

He wants to have that relationship.

He wants to bless us with the things and the promises that are in His Word and he wants to remind us of purpose that he's put upon us.

Okay.

And then two things.

I mentioned Mark Batterson, Pastor Mark Patterson earlier.

But in Draw the Circle he says two things that I want to point out.

He says, when I dial into God's frequency in the morning, I hear his still small voice the rest of the day.

And Philip was alluding to that.

When we get in His Word, our perspective changes not only on how we're to show up and serve the world in love and kindness and, you know, how.

How we're showing up, but in how we're seeing other people and how we're seeing circumstances.

We have an opportunity more to be more like Christ, like, instead of more like what our ego or self is drawing us into the world and then love and draw the circle.

It also says the plans of God are only revealed in the presence of God.

We don't get our marching orders until we get on our knees.

But if we hit our knees, God will take us places we never imagined going by paths we didn't even know existed.

Once again, Philip kind of alluded to that he had no idea that the path that his life would take from that first time that he, at 16, actually did his first sermon.

How cool is that, right?

We do not know how our path will unfold, but we can keep getting in God's presence and he will keep showing us the step, right, step by step or keep putting something on our heart.

I just want to encourage you and I wanted to share those things with.

You today as we wrapped up.

I hope today has inspired you to set a new goal for yourself, you know, to deepen your faith by either spending a little bit more time in his word or in prayer.

Hey friends, I just wanted to let you know, if you haven't already joined my email newsletter, head over to KristinFitch.com you can not only join me for regular encouragement in your inbox, but you can also grab my Life Audit workbook completely free.

Just go to kristenfitch.com and click on the Freebies tab and download the Life Audit to start making changes in your life, including the goals that you want to set for your faith life.

You can put there what you're doing currently and how you would like to make a change or what goal you'd like to set in that area as well.

You can focus on your health, your relationship, your career, faith, whatever you want.

So there are pages for each of those and you get to fill in the areas that are most important to you.

So head on over now and grab that as another way, another tool to help you enrich your life and live the life that God is calling you into.

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