Personal Study

A few of us were chatting the other day about church, sermons and personal study when one of the guys (a very genuine guy, who would never puff himself up) said a strong statement. It was one we sort of made fun of at the time but also one that was challenging and should probably be the norm' for every Christian.

He said that no sermon preached could come close to his own personal study.

He went on to clarify that his study involved a lot of commentaries, reading and hard work.
But the fruits of that are that he is drawing close to Christ day in and day out, the experiences of closeness with God that this friend has is astounding and to see the overall direction and impact of his life upon those around him is amazing.

He's not a pastor so he's not paid to study, he holds a full time job he has to travel the length of the country to each day and he's also been sort of care-taking a church while they've been without a pastor. So he doesn't have a lot of time, in fact he probably has less time than most.
But he has sacrificed time given to many other things like tv...

I mention this not to puff my friend up, in fact he'll probably ask me to take this down if he sees it, but because it's been on my mind and challenging my heart since. Have we become too reliant on the preacher (and others) to feed us, when the main source of spiritual food and growth is to be found on our knees with an open Bible, on our own with Christ?

This is not to say we neglect Church and corporate worship, or the sermons. But i thought his statement had a richness to it to point to a means by which every one of us can grow in our knowledge and love of Jesus Christ more than ever.