It was reading the book of James that sent the sword straight into me. I've been brought up to believe in God, and my uncle and mum used to talk to me about the things of God. But I lived my own life and didn't read the Bible very often.
My Bible was on a shelf in my bedroom, and every now and again is look up at it and guiltily look away. Then one day I thought, no I'll read. I randomly opened at the book of James. Read it all, and that was it. I started reading the Bible all the time, and my husband read it with me, and we started going to our house meetings, and I've never looked back since. I think the book of James is brilliant, and it certainly hit it home for me. After that I started reading all about Jesus and reading the rest of the Bible. And now i love reading and pondering on the things of God. It's a true blessing to know the living God!
An interesting comment, and true of a lot of people, maybe every Christian. Not only James, but people strongly drawn into the word of God by other books, showing how God deals with the individual and the power of His word, generally. You seem to hear quite a bit more about Romans in this regard, too, at least from theologians. To me, it was the gospel of John, the words of the Lord Jesus, His uncompromising truth and vision of all things that made perfect sense. James would have had less meaning to me, at that time of youth. It also points out how nothing of God's word is superfluous, common sense we wouldn't have a whole Bible of His word if that were the case, rather only James or John, for instance.
The entire Bible takes on huge meaning, once you see the unified message that is Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ from Genesis to Revelation. In my life, I've found a special depth in Psalms one doesn't quite find in the New Testament, something personal that reaches into the heart of the human experience and that living relationship with God on a day to day level, during times of trouble have even found Psalms like some magic medicine. Not sure everybody realizes this, but the Holy Spirit did not make His first appearance at Pentecost. David was highly spiritual, don't know of another man aside from the Lord Himself that the Lord outright said was a man after His own heart, 1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22. Generally speaking, there's more talk of the deceitful heart of man in scripture, for God to say anybody is after His heart a really big deal, so I always thought David a special study. As to the Holy Spirit:
Psalms 51
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
Of course, most neglected in mainstream Christianity is Revelation, but a book that comes with a blessing to study, and it does bless. It spells out the end of things, has warnings of false religion to the churches, which, at least to me, orients one to what's important, and it's not the carnal, world system, destined to go up in smoke, as it were. You look into the maw of the apocalypse, suddenly the party, football or "Dancing with the Stars" lose a lot of shine. Speaking of James, he also did mention corroded gold and silver as a witness against people and it eating them like fire, had an mini-apocalypse going on. James is amazing, in my case for the more matured Christian, was an acquired taste, you maybe more mature out of the gate? I do recall most needing the Lord Jesus to say listen-up, here's the way it is via John, which brilliantly begins, out of the gate, that Jesus Christ is God, in plain English, which really, really got my attention to slowly read and listen hard to this Man. At the time, I also loved how the Lord Jesus unabashedly bashed the devils of His day, fearlessly told the hypocritical religious elites they were the likes of the offspting of vipers, whitewashed graves. What a Guy! It appealed to that rebellious part of our growing up, but in a positive light, deeper than any political matter. The Lord Jesus got to the heart of the matter, for the world and everybody in it. I suddenly realized all the problems were lack of repentance and reformation of mankind, a fix required of the inner man, before the outer problems can be fixed. To this day, our societies have the cart before the horse, have not seen anything since to alter that truth, hence the apocalypse an inevitable.
Whatever the case, the whole Bible is the word of God and worthy, is saying something to somebody, throughout, that the Spirit of Christ is dealing with.
