Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.

Proverbs 19:27, NIV (1978)

Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 7:21, NIV (1978)

I suppose we have all done it. We've been on a trip to somewhere new and have somehow gotten off track. And the aggravating thing was that we had already consulted a map, so we knew the right way, only to get mixed up somewhere along the line and get lost. This has happened to me more than once when going through a big city. The map I looked at earlier clearly showed that if I would just stay on the Interstate that I would be alright. But while going along I came to a fork in the road and mistakenly took the wrong one because I was so sure that I knew my way, only to later find that this confidence in my own memory was ill-placed.

At other times I have gotten lost even though I had been on that very road before and made it to the place I was going with no problems. But then for some reason, I got distracted or the way was not as fresh in my mind as it had been the last time I was that way, and I ended up going in the wrong direction. It seems like every time I have done this that it was in traffic, and I couldn't get to my lane in time to make the correction once I had finally realized my mistake.

In both types of situations, I was a victim of my own ignorance. I had forgotten a way that I had previously seen was right, only to end up lost for a while and far from my destination. The problem could have been easily avoided if I had continued to consult the map or GPS instead of relying on my own memory.

And this, in a nutshell, is why we need to keep on reading the Bible. It's true that the more often we read it the more familiar the passages will become. Because of this very familiarity, we might be tempted to think we have it "all knowed up" as one of my favorite preachers used to say. But by relying on our memory (or even worse, our own opinion) we often find ourselves thinking that we are on the right path, only to find ourselves miles away from home and hopelessly lost.

This is why we keep reading the Bible: It's so we won't get lost! 

When Jesus made the statement we read above from the book of Matthew, He was addressing one of the most common human failings that exist. People want to do the right thing, but they are often so confident of their own thoughts that they miss the way entirely. There are a lot of us who acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, and this is a great start. However, good intentions must be matched by good actions, and in this specific case those actions must be precise. Since heaven is on the line, you have to admit that we have a pretty powerful incentive for double checking our instructions so that we can make sure we remain on the right path.

The good news is that the "map" we refer to was made easy to understand by a loving Father who does not want us to get lost. That was His part, and He did it perfectly. Our part is to make sure that we follow these instructions as close to the mark as humanly possible. If we don't, the warning reveals, we will stray from the path. But if we continually refresh our memories by continually reading God's word, we are going to be alright.

Are you a regular reader of the Bible, even though you may have already read it a hundred times before? If so, you are likely to reach your preferred destination. If not... well, I think you already know the answer to that.