For many, New Year’s is just another holiday. For others, it’s a time of deep reflection, both on the past year and on the one ahead. For followers of Jesus, New Year’s provides us an opportunity to pause and reflect on the turning of the calendar. Moses asked of the Lord, “Teach us to number our days, so we may get a heart of wisdom” Psalm 90:12. Time—seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years—is a gift to us from a good God. To wisely follow him, then, is to redeem our time.

New Year’s is also a time for us to consider new resolutions and goals. Setting goals for a new year are an important sign that we’re intentional about glorifying God in our callings—work and business, home and church, private and public witness.

Today I want to share a once-off message from 2 Kings about the importance of abiding in God’s Word. My prayer is that part of your New Year's resolutions would be to make intentional systematic Bible reading one of your goals in 2022.

From our passage there are three important lessons we can learn.

1. GO FIND THE BOOK (v. 8).
2. GO READ THE BOOK (v. 10).
3. GO OBEY THE BOOK (vv. 11-13)

While the temple in Jerusalem was being repaired Hilkiah finds the lost “Book of the Law”. This book that the high priest found was either part or the entire book of Deuteronomy. It was God’s Word discovered anew! It had been lost for some time under a pile of stones in the temple or in one of the chambers, where it had remained unnoticed for years. Wherever it was, it is quite evident that the people of God had not been reading the Scriptures as they should have been. But the discovery brought a dynamic response from Josiah and brought a revival to Israel.

But before we go on, I want you to notice where this “Book of the Law” was found. It wasn’t found in a cave, wrapped up in some earthenware, it wasn’t found in the ground protected in some wooden box. The Book of the law was found…where? …in the temple..

The Word of God was not taken away from them and destroyed by fire, it was where it always was…in the temple.

Let me ask you at this point…. How many Bibles do you have at home? How often do you read it? Is the only time you read a Bible when it is displayed on the screen during the service? What place and priority does the Bible have in your life? Is it a manual for living, or is it stuffed with souvenirs and gathering dust somewhere in your home?

The Bible is God's Word to us, and it contains instructions and wisdom for our lives as humans and as believers in Jesus Christ as Lord. The Bible is a book about God. It tells us who He is and who we are. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." Spending time in God's Word is vital to our spiritual growth.