Make It Personal

One of the most exciting things about Scripture is when it is energised by the Holy Spirit and the scales fall off our eyes to see or understand things that have always been there, but which we have not registered before. Suddenly the words pierce our hearts, and we feel the personal message from the Word for us. We know without a doubt that God is speaking to us and our current situation through his Word.

God definitely means for Scripture to become personal to us. It is through His word that the world was created, and Jesus is His word become flesh. Nothing can be more personal than God reaching out to us in human form. His intention is clearly to elicit a personal response from us and for us to develop a personal relationship with Him.

We can intensify the personal application of God’s word to our lives by using it in prayer. We can take scriptures that the Holy Spirit has highlighted for us and make them personal by praying them. For example, Romans 12 became absolutely fascinating for me last year when I read it in the Amplified version. (Often reading verses in a different translation triggers a fresh realisation of their meaning, and that is what happened for me).

I felt led to forge a daily personal prayer and declaration out of it, both with the purpose of declaring God’s word and of cementing the truth of that word in my own soul. I share this prayer with you as an example of the process of making Scripture personal to you, although obviously the Holy Spirit guides each of us individually.

“I make a decisive dedication of my body, soul and spirit in exclusive attachment to God (verse 1). I will not let myself be overcome by evil (verse 21), but I will exult in hope and be constant in prayer (verse12). I will be aglow and burning with the Spirit (verse11), for God is my glory and my joy.”

Another wonderful scripture that I discovered a while ago is Isaiah 59:19 in the Amplified Version. My prayer became, “Lord, the enemy is coming in like a flood. Holy Spirit, lift up a standard against him and come like a rushing stream that the breath of the Lord drives and put him to flight.”

I encourage you to ask the Lord for scriptures that you can pray in this manner and I can attest from personal experience that you will know God’s power in a new way.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for the power of the Scriptures, inspired by You. Please speak to us from Your word and make it more and more personal every day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.