How to Apply God’s Word to Your Life

As Christians, we know we are to obey God, to grow spiritually, and to actually apply the Bible to our lives. But applying God’s word to your life can be a challenge. Thankfully the word of God itself gives us an understanding on how to best apply God’s word in our everyday life.

While these truths are huge topics within themselves, here are five practical steps found in Scripture on how to apply God’s word.

1. Apply God’s Word by Remaining in Jesus/ Being Filled with the Holy Spirit
Not to oversimplify, but the Scriptures are clear that it is impossible to obey God’s commands without the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit:

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

(Also see: Romans 8:3-4, Ephesians 5:18)

2. Apply God’s Word through Prayer/Asking for the Power
We need to be intimately connected with Jesus and to be filled with his Spirit to apply his written truth. The primary means of grace on intimately connecting with Jesus is prayer. When we lack something, we are told to ask Jesus directly for it. In order to be filled with the Spirit, thus having the power to apply God’s word to our life, we are to pray at all times in the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18), asking for all that we need, including the power to obey:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:5-6)

(Also see: James 4:1-2, Matthew 7:7-8)

3. Apply God’s Word by Reading, Understanding, Memorizing, and Meditating Over the Word of God
If you hope to apply what God has written, there is no getting around the fact that we must do the most obvious thing: read it. You can’t obey someone if you don’t know what they have said. Additionally, we must not only read it, we must understand the Scriptures. Digging deep in our study of what God has actually communicated in his inspired pages is a crucial step in applying it. We must also memorize the word of God and prayerfully mediated over it as well so that God’s truth is firmly in our hearts, for “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart” (Matthew 12:35 NIV). If we hope for our lives to reflect God’s revealed will, then we must immerse ourselves with his word:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success (Joshua 1:8)

I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119:11)

(Also see: Ephesians 5:15-17, Colossians 1:9-10)

4. Apply God’s Word by Actively Believing in Faith that God’s Word is Truth
What you truly believe is reflected in what you do. Like our mother’s told us when we were young, “Actions speak louder than words.” We can say we believe, but what we do proves what we believe. Knowing this, therefore, means that we should not try to reverse the flow. We must not try to change what we do to alter what we believe. Rather, to change our actions, we must get down to our core beliefs. To apply God’s word to your life, you must genuinely and actively put your faith in the fact that what God has said is true:

The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. (Psalm 119:160)

Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18)
(Also see: 2 Corinthians 4:13, Galatians 3:5-6. Philippians 3:9)

5. Apply God’s Word by Willfully Choosing to Obey
The fact that we are unable to apply God’s word without the Holy Spirit does not contradict the fact that God gives man the freedom to choose. God’s Holy Spirit does not compromise man’s free will, but rather through the Holy Spirit man’s will is set free. Once we have been justified through faith, we have a part to play in actively choosing to participate in the process of our sanctification. Once we are filled with the Holy Spirit, intimately connected to Jesus Christ, prayerfully seeking the power to obey, understanding and knowing the word of God, putting our faith in the truth of the Bible, the last step is to choose to apply God’s word to our life:

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:10-11 NIV)

(Also see: Philippians 2:12-13, Galatians 5:1)

Applying God’s word your your life will never be easy and we will never do it perfectly on this side of eternity. But through God’s means of grace, he will give us the power to grow in him every day.