APPLY WHAT YOU LEARN TODAY
Hebrews 4:1-12 tells us about the importance of application of what we read to our lives:
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them; but the message which they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall never enter my rest,'” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this place he said, “They shall never enter my rest.” 6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he sets a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later of another day. 9 So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God; 10 for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
The emphasis of this scripture on “today” and the ability of the word of God to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart strongly suggests application of what we read in the Bible to our lives now — not on Saturday or Sunday, or at some unknown future time. Bible interpretation that deflects our attention to history or to the fulfillment of promises and prophecies in some unknown future or at a time when some human will teach them paralyzes and handicaps readers from applying truth to their lives today. Therefore, readers must consciously work to reject historical and future orientations in favor of a clear, here and now application of what they read as God speaks to them — especially while reading. If we do not apply what we learn relatively soon (i.e. today), we run the risk of hardening our hearts to receive any future learning.