Seldomly, do you sit down on Sunday mornings in church and hear sermons about the Bible, as the book it genuinely is. The Bible is essentially the holy grail textbook for Christianity. I have heard countless sermons about something in the Bible or that relate to it in some way, but never specifically about it.

The Bible is intimidating.

It is split into two parts with 66 books, 1,198 chapters, and 31,102 verses. Yikes!

The Bible is overwhelming.

Anyone who tells you the Bible is easy to read is not right. They either are not grasping the depth of the context, or they have not really read it in the first place. I am pretty sure the people in the Bible are just about as conflicted as I am reading it half the time.

The Bible is confusing.

My church in Blacksburg, VA just finished up an entire sermon series about the Bible specifically. It was by far everything I could have ever hoped it to be and more. I do not read the Bible as much as I feel like I should, but this might change with the new perspective I have on it.

As life-shattering as this may be,

We do not get to create God in our own image.

This does not prevent people from trying. Faith in itself is an extremely imaginative concept, but there is a solid line between imagination and delusion. The Bible draws that solid line for us. There are plenty of people who decide something about God without evidence. The fancy word for these delusions people make up is heresy. Heresies have the power to affect our culture but inevitably do not pass the test of time. History is chock-full of heresies.

To balance out the life-shattering news about God, I will let you in on a secret that everyone should know. God's Words serve as the ultimate measuring stick. Trust me you heard it right, the Bible is a measuring stick. It provides us with the true rubric for who God is. The Bible helps keep us honest in learning about Him.

It does not stop there. The Bible is a mirror. There are countless things in this imperfect world that try to tell us who we are: the media, our peers, unhealthy relationships, and ourselves. There are even more things that can be used to help us forget who we are: drugs, alcohol, and anything we force too much of our time into. The Bible helps to clear the air and adequately show us who we are. We have to block these negative aspects. Our culture will set us up for failure if we do not have something, like the Bible, to look into and truly see what we should be.

We are told that we are made to produce and consume, but we are made to love.

We are under the impression that we are supposed to be strong and rugged, but we supposed to be each other's neighbor.

We feel like we should just run away or escape this reality, but we should be so merciful and march along with God.

Let us take full advantage of what God has given us. The Bible is there for us to use. Let us grow in understanding by using this measuring stick to give us precisely what we are looking for. Allow it to show us who we need to strive to be.