By Mike Treneer
International President, The Navigators

1. Feeding on God’s Word

As I look back on my life, two decisions stand out to me as having had a huge positive influence on the way my life has turned out.

The first principle is staying deeply engaged with the Bible—reading it daily, reflecting on it prayerfully, committing important passages to memory, studying books and topics in some depth, and talking it over with friends. The Apostle Paul exhorts us in Colossians 3:16 to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. Someone has said that what is in the well of our heart and mind is what comes up in the bucket of our speech and actions.

Constantly immersing our minds in the Scriptures shapes our understanding of God, frees our minds from the prevailing and controlling false ideas of the culture that surrounds us, and guides the choices we make in the big and little issues that determine the direction of our lives.

Join the Book of the Month Club

One simple idea that has helped me stay engaged with the Bible over the years is the concept of “a book of the month.” Each month I choose one book of the Bible and immerse myself in it in every way I can: reading and re-reading, underlining, outlining, memorizing paragraphs, and examining my life and thinking in light of Scripture. At the end of the month, I move on to another book. If I have thoroughly enjoyed the book I’m in and don’t feel I’ve gotten all I could from it, I might stick with the same book for another month.

2. Pursue deep friendships

The second life-shaping principle has been in the area of friendships. As I look back, I see clearly how the friends God has given me over the years have shaped my life. Even the ongoing choices I have made to stay engaged with the Scriptures, as I’ve just described, have been, in many ways, influenced by the friends around me.

On one occasion, early in my Christian walk, I felt discouraged at how badly I thought I was doing spiritually. I was somewhat isolated from friends and had pretty much decided to give up on my spiritual life. I reasoned that my faith could not be worth much if I could not stand on my own spiritually. Fortunately, I shared this with a friend. He reminded me of the “body” principle of 1 Corinthians 12. He pointed out that while the Lone Ranger might be a great ideal for an old west hero, the “lone finger” did not sound so likely to succeed. Fingers are designed to be part of a hand. He helped me see that my discouragement was not the result of an inadequate faith but rather the result of an inadequate commitment to staying in touch with like-minded friends. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.

Stick with the team

In the Navigator work today, we have a strong and healthy emphasis on “living and discipling among the lost.” We are stressing the importance of carrying the Gospel in natural ways among our family and friends who don’t know or haven’t experienced God’s love in Jesus. Jesus, after all, was a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 11:19) and the Gospels are full of illustrations of Jesus having meals with those who were not regarded as “good company.” We all need to make more time in our lives for friends who are outside of Christ; but as we do so, we need to keep making committed choices to team up with and sustain close friendships with those who share our faith and vision and whose love for God we respect.

Proverbs 13:20 says, He who walks with the wise grows wise, and Proverbs 27:17 expresses the same thought with a vivid metaphor: As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. As a friend of mine used to say, “You can’t sharpen a knife with a banana.”

Who are the friends in your life these days that sharpen your faith and revitalize your passion for Christ? Don’t just take what comes—actively pursue the kind of friends who will encourage and help you stay deeply engaged with the Scriptures.

Check out the action items in the sidebar “It’s Your Move”.