If your gift is serving others, serve them well. Be spiritually well all the time cuz way too many people are not. Our condition is related to our choices of course.
Hear it well (the Bible Message), observe it lived.. follow the Leader (cap) with a WELL church cuz a spiritually sick or religious one (same thing) is a real pain to endure!
W - ord (first a believer, a healthy church or a well group is loving Jesus and God's Book. )
E - vangelistic (an outgrowth of health)
L - oving (up first, with a worshipping church, then outwards)
L - earning (discipleship is important church)
“The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.” — D.L. Moody
Words found in the flyleaf of his Bible.
Indeed pray to the Author (at least briefly) alone and from the heart, or before you together as a group study the Bible.
The illumination comes from Him. The Spirit will help you grasp, understand see how to apply and who doesn't want to understand what God via the original human writers meant to say to his original hearers. What was this audience dealing with at the time.
What's really smart is getting right with the Lord today, early before the toughest years arrive. The Apostle Paul warned that the last days would bring a marked increase in false teaching. “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (1 Timothy 4:1).
These last days are described as “perilous times” because of the increasingly evil character of man and people who actively “oppose the truth” (2 Timothy 3:1–9; see also 2 Thessalonians 2:3).
All the forces of darkness, (and there indeed are some), cannot stop what God has ordained.