How to Grow in Confidence When Reading the Bible | Ep. 129

Do you ever open the Bible and feel unsure, behind, or afraid of getting it wrong? In this episode, we talk about how to grow in confidence when reading Scripture without pressure or perfection. Learn why consistency matters more than intensity, how comparison can hold you back, and how to approach the Bible in a steady, practical way. If you want to understand Scripture more clearly and build a rhythm that lasts, this conversation will help you move forward with confidence.

Transcript

Welcome And The Confidence Struggle

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This is episode 129, and I'm your host, Satoya, and this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. Are you still lacking confidence in the word? You don't want to miss this. Now let's dive in because some of you may be new or, like I said, maybe returning, and you're still like kind of struggling in that. Maybe you're like, Latoya, I'm still lacking the confidence to open the word or to grow in God's word. And I just want to encourage you. Hopefully, we can we can just nip this in the bud right now. Because listen, you're not alone. There are a lot of people that are like that. I was like that. But I'm telling you, I'm telling you, you don't have to be, we don't have to stay there. Listen, confidence in scripture grows gradually. Okay? Through familiarity and faithful encouragement. Okay. That's it, it grows gradually. It's a gradual process. You gotta start somewhere. I talk about that a lot. So I want you to ask yourself this question. What would change if I focused on remaining in the word rather than mastering it? Let me say that again. What would change? Ask yourself this, not me. Nobody's around you. Maybe you have your earphones on. It's okay. What would change if I focused on remaining in the word rather than mastering it? Because that's the goal. Don't look at somebody else. Don't look at you have to know all these words. You gotta know, you mean trust me, Hebrew and Greek are great. But if you're starting, it can be overwhelming. That's why I always say start where you are, build the muscle first. It's just like when you work out. You might want to lose some weight or whatever, and you go into the gym, and you might feel intimidated. You might pick up a weight, maybe too heavy. You might walk, that might be too much. But over time, it gets easier and easier, and then you start to see the weight drop off. But it doesn't happen overnight. It happens when you continuously do it, when you develop that muscle, when you discipline yourself and what you eat and you know, um what you're what you're consuming, and you start to see the results. And the results aren't really for other people, they're for you, so that you can be healthier, right? I mean, of course we want to look good in that dress or something like that. But I'm saying overall, you want to be healthy, and that should be the goal. You want to be healthy. So we're gonna go to my favorite book in the Bible. Well, my favorite book in the New Testament. If you can guess what my favorite book in the Old Testament is or books, if you're part of the EFP group, don't answer because you probably already know. But I think I've mentioned this, I don't know, in an episode. Email me at hello at equipthenext.com. I'll give you a shout-out in one of the episodes if you can guess my old testament favorite book or books. But my those of you who've been rocking with me for some time know that Ephesians is my favorite New Testament book. And so I want to go to Ephesians 3 12. Well, I'm gonna go to Ephesians 3 11. It says, This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. Get this one, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. I could probably drop my mic right now, but I'm not gonna drop my mic. Nope, I'm not gonna drop my mic because I want to encourage you that through Christ, believers are reconciled to God. And if you trust that and believe that, you walk in that, you walk in that boldness. You understand who He is through Christ, believers are reconciled to faith. I mean, I'm sorry, through Christ, believers are reconciled to God. If you hear my door creaking, that was my son. Yes. But anywho, let's go back. This is raw and living color, right? This is not edited. So, anywho, understanding that is key. Understanding that Jesus is uh fully man and fully God. Full 100% man, a hundred percent God. He had to be fully man because he died for us. Right? He had to be fully fully God because he died for us. He's fully man, so he understands he was here, but he's fully God and died for us, and why is that important? Because through Christ, we believers are reconciled to God, because if he wouldn't have died for us, we'd be in trouble. Maybe I should read some more.

unknown 6:10

Let me go.

Simple Study Helps And Next Steps

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If I go to Ephesians 2, and you were dead in the trespasses and sin, in which you once walked, following the curse of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived, in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our heart and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace have been saved. You have been saved, sorry. By grace, you have been saved. Um, I don't think I have my phone here, so I got Genesis 2.17. Let's go there really quick. Genesis 2 17. Sorry, y'all. Uh Genesis 2.17. Let's go down. Let's go to um yeah. Really, it's more than 217 because here we see the fall. But I'll just say, cursed is the ground. I'm gonna look at 17B. Cursed is the ground because of you and pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. We're talking about the fall here, and so we were all born, we were all we were all born to sin. Right? Not to sin like that's what we do, but I'm saying we were born in sin. Everybody is born in sin. But Christ, through Christ, believers are reconciled to God because we were all dead in the trespasses of our sin. Everyone. Everyone. And so why do I bring this up? Why do I why do I bring this up? Because if you understand, I encourage you, read Ephesians. I have um an overview of Ephesians. If you want to get that um overview, you can listen to those episodes. But I encourage you to understand who you are in Christ Jesus so that you can build that boldness muscle, so you can build that confidence muscle. Understanding that scripture forms us over time, understanding and realizing that faithfulness matters more than perfection, that the word shapes believers as it dwells within us. These are things that you hopefully will understand. Do not beat yourself up if you don't figure something out. There are so many resources out here. There are so many people. We have the community over here at Equip the Next. And other your your local church, um, people locally that you see, believers. There's so many great resources out here. So I hope that this episode will encourage you to grow in the word, to see the Christ thread, the indwelling word, the the teaching um that that we see in this word, growing in Christ, growing in um the love for Christ, growing in that step by step and day by day. Hopefully, before I wrap this up, you got that free guide um guide, um, the Bible study guardrail, because it is just a one-pager. Let me see if I know the I don't have the it's equipthenext.com forward slash freebie, I believe. It's in the show notes, I just don't know it by heart. But um, I encourage you to get those Bible study guardrails because it's just a one page, but it kind of helps you a little bit if you're new to studying the Bible. It's like a little cheat sheet, if you will. So I encourage you to do that, and I want to challenge you today to spend a few minutes each day with the same passage this week. Don't try to beat yourself up to read a whole chunk of chunk. Um man, I kind of want to encourage Ephesians, but I guess if you can go into Ephesians um and start in chapter one, but maybe if something stands out to you if you want, or if if there's another one that's on your heart, you can do that. But what I want you to do is just spend a few minutes each day with that same passage this week. And apply what you've learned thus far. So, like scripture interpreting scripture and reading versus studying, like everything we've talked about this month. Try to see if you can apply that to that passage. Don't overwhelm yourself. You know, if you can't do a whole chapter, don't do like a couple verses, whatever. Just make sure you read enough to understand it and you're not taking it out of context. And just really understand what you are reading. If you need a good method, go to the uh bonus episode. The equip uh method is a good way, a simple way to study scripture. Um, but you don't have to use that. I just encourage you to spend time in his word and really understanding who he is. Well, that is it. That's all I got for you today. Listen, I am so grateful that you're here. Listen, if these episodes have been a blessing to you, don't forget to subscribe or follow so that you don't miss future episodes. Thank you so much. I encourage you to grow in God's word and lead boldly.