3 Reasons to Be Exhilarated—Not Intimidated—by the Bible

This is the year! Finally, we’re going to fall in love with the Bible—no matter how much it has intimidated us. After all, people do it all the time. We’re determined to become one of those for whom the Bible exhilarates rather than intimidates. 

The good news is that, as intimidating as the Bible can sometimes feel, the number of ways it exhilarates our souls far exceeds any of its intimidation factors. Here are three ways this is true:

1. Intimidation: The Bible is huge. 
    Exhilaration: The Bible is the very words of our great and loving God.

The Bible consists of sixty-six separate books containing 1,189 chapters. There’s no use pretending it isn’t massive, but this fact should actually exhilarate us. Why? Because the Bible doesn’t merely contain God’s words; the Bible is the very words of God—our eternal God who loves us.

The Holy Spirit inspired every word written. Paul affirmed this truth when he wrote, “This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the word of God, which also works effectively in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).

When we understand that the Bible isn’t a collection of human thoughts but God’s words recorded for us, we realize it’s the most unique and glorious book ever written. Doesn’t this exhilarating truth make you wish the Bible were even thicker? 

I certainly want to hear more from the Lord, not less—especially since the Bible carries the full authority and power of God to effectively transform us. Fortunately, through the Bible, God has communicated everything we need to know until Christ returns.¹

2. Intimidation: The Bible is depressing with all its talk of judgment, death, and hell.
    Exhilaration: The Bible gives us the words of eternal life and freedom from judgment, death, and hell.

The breathtaking peaks along the Mt. Olomana Trail in Hawaii have drawn many hikers, but the trail has also claimed many lives. For this reason, officials installed a sign at the trailhead listing the number of fatal falls and when each occurred. While those statistics may feel sobering—even unsettling—proclaiming the truth, as frightening as it is, has saved lives.

The most important truth we need to know is that we’re all born in sin and that there is only one way to salvation and eternal life. Whenever we sin, we sin against God and do what is evil in His sight. In His holiness, God is just to pass sentence on us; He is blameless when He judges us (Psalm 51:4). 

But God wants us to know the way to salvation (John 14:6) and to enjoy assurance of that salvation. This is why He gave us His Word: “I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). 

Through Scripture, we come to understand the truth about God’s holiness, our sinfulness, sin’s deceitfulness, and Christ’s saving work. We also come to know God’s grace and mercy—the same grace and mercy that continually restrain sin and Satan from destroying us and the whole world. 

Because God has given us vivid word pictures in Scripture of sin’s consequences and His just judgment for sin, we are not left to live oblivious and condemned. Instead, He reveals to us the life-giving truth of the gospel. 

Those who read the Bible with a heart eager to know the truth discover that God’s Word is far from depressing. It’s the exhilarating message of grace, mercy, freedom, and eternal life. And for all who believe in Christ, the Scriptures infuse us with daily confidence and fill us with peace and abiding joy. 

3. Intimidation: The Bible is hard to understand. 
    Exhilaration: God wants us to understand the Bible and provides the help we need.

We do not want you to be uninformed. (1 Thessalonians 4:13) 

When Paul wrote these words to the Thessalonians, he was echoing the heart of God. The Lord does not want us to be uninformed—or misinformed—about the truth. This is why He gave us His Word, His Spirit, and His Church. 

Ironically, some of Paul’s letters were difficult to understand. Listen to what Peter wrote about them: “There are some things hard to understand in them” (2 Pet. 3:16). If you’ve studied the Bible much, you know there are passages that can feel puzzling or confusing. Yet God has provided all the power and resources we need through His Spirit and His people.

At salvation, God gives us His own indwelling Spirit to open our hearts and minds to understand the Scriptures and be transformed by them (John 14:26; 1 John 2:27). As Peter reminds us, “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Pet. 1:3).

God also makes us members of His family—the Church—which He established to help train and equip us to understand His Word (Eph. 2:19–20). Faithful churches, pastors, and teachers leave us with greater confidence in God and in Scripture because the Lord transforms us by His Spirit through His Word. 

Understanding the Bible takes effort and guidance, but we need not be intimidated. The exhilarating truth is this: “He who calls you is faithful; he will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24). All our efforts reap rewards because as we read and study Scripture, God uses His Word to change us, filling us with the peace, hope, and encouragement found in Christ.

For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures. (Romans 15:4) 

God’s Word Exhilarates!

We don’t know what each year will bring, but we know what the Bible brings—exhilaration in ways we may never have imagined. 

Did you imagine that it is God’s Word—not our external efforts to become better—that does the transforming work in us?

So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard through the message about Christ. (Romans 10:17) 

For the word of God is living and effective. (Hebrews 4:12) 

May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Peter 1:2)

Did you imagine that the God of the Old Testament is exceedingly more patient and forgiving than the world believes? 

The LORD—the LORD is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth. (Exodus 34:6) 

Because of the LORD’s faithful love 
we do not perish, 
for his mercies never end. (Lamentations 3:22)

Did you imagine that Christ is so intricately woven throughout the Bible—from Genesis to Revelation? 

Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures. (Luke 24:27) 

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8) 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

When we faithfully read and study God’s perfect Word, His Word does its perfect work in us—shaping us more and more into the likeness of Christ.This year, let’s keep our eyes fixed on this promise and refuse to let any intimidation with the Bible or the many challenges of life keep us from opening its pages. 

This is the year. Finally, we will become one of those who have tasted and seen the greatness of our God in His Word—and whose soul is exhilarated. 

How sweet your word is to my taste—sweeter than honey in my mouth.
(Psalm 119:103)

¹ Imagine how thick the Bible would be if it recorded everything God has done and said since He created the world. John imagined how thick his Gospel would be if he’d recorded all Jesus said and did in His earthly ministry. “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).