If you view God's Scriptures as a love letter from God, you automatically upgrade your engagement level simply with that one paradigm shift alone. This perspective prepares you for a deeper level of intake and insight.

Imagine the person who loves you more than anyone else ever could is physically away on a journey but has sent you the very expression of his heart. How would you treat that letter? What mindset would you hold as you approach it?

The Bible says that God is love. 1 John 3:1 (NIV) states, "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"

God's Scriptures as a love letter are the expression of God's heart toward you and a revelation of your place in His story.

I encourage you to come to the Scriptures with expectation and the tools to really dig in.

Admittedly, the big challenge in all this is the fact that the original "love letter" was written in a different language thousands of years ago. The resources you have available to you today as a serious student of the Bible make accessing the real depth of meaning possible.

Resources that can help with studying the Scriptures are:

-a concordance or key word search program

-a Bible dictionary

-a regular dictionary

-a book of Bible names

-maps

-timelines tables

-a cross-reference

-different versions of the Bible

-devotionals

-lexicons

-written & audio sermons

You can get these resources very inexpensively from online retailers and used book bookstores. Many of them are free online as well. As you learn how to use a few resources well, they will serve you well for years and years.

Just remember, you won't use the tools if you don't have the right mindset. The right mindset is rooted in seeing the value of the Scriptures themselves. They are God's love letter to humanity and need to be viewed as such to maintain the motivation to study the Bible personally for oneself.

Once you begins to dig deeper with this value-driven mindset, the growth cycle will actually feeds itself and you will be less intimidated by the learning curve of learning how to use the Bible study tools that you have at your disposal.

Take advantage of what's available for you to really get into God's Scriptures and you will find it very much worthwhile. The love letter of God's Word really comes alive when you approach it with equipped enthusiasm.