The Bible is the manual of transformation. But as with any other manual, it only works if you read it and apply what you are reading. Follow the instructions and apply the principles.
People may collect books on how to stop smoking, on how to lose weight, how to be organized and how to better use their time, but until they actually start applying the instructions to their lives nothing happens. People can even read the books and have a mental knowledge of what they need to change and what they need to do, but until they start affecting changes in their life styles and doing things in a different way nothing changes.
John 13:17 tells us, “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” (NASB95)
I read an article awhile back about a boy in Africa that changed the life of his community because he read a book about wind power being used to pump water, and generating electricity. However, it was not enough to read about the wind power; he had to go around the neighborhood to find old pipes and scrap materials to make his first wind mill and start pumping water, and that changed the life of his entire community. You can read the story here.
The more we commit ourselves to apply what we read in the Word, we will see changes not only in ourselves but also around us in our families and our communities.
I really believe that there are promises and provisions just waiting for someone to start living them. Like the book that this African boy found in a library—it could not have changed his life if he had not decided to do something with the knowledge he had achieved. The same is true with the Word of God. It is already changing lives of people as they apply themselves in what they believe.
As James 2:17 teaches us, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (NIV84)