I am writing this at 35,000 feet as I travel to Haiti on a mission’s trip.  I have a backpack full of stuff to make the trip go smoothly – lap top, hat, protein bars, water, hand sanitizer, glasses, sun screen and of course, my passport.

If you are like me, you don’t give your passport a lot of love.  If I am not traveling, it sits in my drawer collecting dust and basically doing nothing.  I don’t think about it at all.  I don’t carry it in my pocket, keep it handy, check to see if it is up to date…basically, I don’t value it.

YET…when I travel outside the United States, it becomes a really big deal.  I wipe off all the dust and empty it of any prior airline tickets.  I check to make sure it is within the termination date and all is in order.  I will carry it with me wherever I go.  It will be the most important item I can carry while outside the USA.

Why is this little book so vital?  It identifies who I am and who I belong to.  It gives my name, physical description and has a picture.  If anyone wants to verify who I am, my passport allows them to do this in just a few moments.  It tells that I am a citizen of the United States of America.  It clearly identifies that I have all the rights given as a citizen of my home country.  You can have the same name or even look like me, but this information is mine alone.  There is only one passport that identifies me as me.

Do you realize that you have your own passport?  It’s your Bible.

It is easy to treat our Bible like my passport.  Leave it on the shelf and gather dust until needed.  Then, we clean it up and get ready to “dive in.”  My challenge for you today is simple… “Read your Bible daily.”  Do you just read it for the “trip” or time of need?  Do you use it only when you encountering a new problem or difficulty?  When that resolves, do you put it back on the shelf only to be ready for the “next trip?”

I encourage you to treat your Bible like your phone.  In fact, you can actually put it on your phone.  There are some tremendous versions out there that make the Bible easy to understand.  I like the Youversion Bible app.

Most importantly, your Bible will do what your passport does for you.  It identifies who you are if you have accepted Christ.  It will give you the principles that Jesus and the disciples taught in living a Christian life.  Those principles are evidence of your citizenship in Christ.  It will cause you to identify you as you.  The Bible has a lot to say about you and how God sees you.  It will give you the truth about you.  It will guide you into growing from your vision into the vision God has for you. 

Pick up your Bible today.  Read it each day…you will go to a place you have never been before.