Tips for Sticking With a Bible Reading Plan
When I first started trying to read through the Bible in a year, I struggled. It seemed like I was always forgetting or waking up late or stumbling to bed without having read anything in my Bible at all. But God helped me to grow to the point where consistency is not a struggle like it once was. The following are some things God used to help me learn to be faithful with my daily time in His Word.
Check your power source
When I first started reading through the Bible in a year, it was a goal I was trying to accomplish in my own strength. I had been in church long enough to know that Christians aren’t supposed to “rely on the flesh”, or do things in their own strength, but I didn’t really know how that all worked. I’ve written several posts about relying on God’s strength, like this one, so I won’t go into this here other than to say this: when we rely on our own strength or ability to accomplish anything in life, we will burn out. God says He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6)
If you want to succeed in sticking with your Bible reading goals, you need to make sure you’re looking to God, not yourself.
Decide it’s Essential
After 2020, you might be sick of hearing the word “essential,” but it makes the point, doesn’t it? In order to be faithful to be in God’s Word every day, you need to realize it is essential: something necessary for you to function properly as a child of God.
Job said, “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12) This verse is often quoted at people in an attempt to convince them of the truth that God’s Word is necessary to Christians. As important as food is to our physical bodies, God’s Word is even more important to our hearts and minds.
Psalm 119:105 says, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” God has given us His Word to direct, guide, teach, motivate, and strengthen us.
Psalm 119:11 points out another function of God’s Word: “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” We can approach our daily time in God’s Word as His special preparation for the day. It is God’s truth that combats Satan’s lies and protects us from his attacks. How can we go out into the battle each day without a shield? (More on that here.)
In order to stick with a daily time with God, it needs to become a non-negotiable part of your life.
Refuse to Give Up
Some of you may be a week in to your Bible schedule and already have missed a day (or two… or three… I’ve been there!) It’s important to remember that God’s mercies are new every morning, and there’s no eleventh commandment saying that Bible reading must be consecutive from January 1 in order to count. You can always start again, or set aside time to catch up. —Just don’t let that be an excuse to procrastinate.
The point of Bible reading is the good it does you, not how good you are at doing it.
Some is Better than Nothing
Even if you forget to turn on your alarm and find yourself rushing out the door without time to read the whole passage on your schedule for the day, God can still use a verse or two to encourage, strengthen, or convict your heart. Will one minute make you late for work? Open your Bible and set a timer. —You’ll be amazed how long a minute really is!
Even those who read vast numbers of chapters a day often feel like they could have done more. The important thing is that you’re letting God speak to you through His Word, however much He leads you to read. It’s about relationship and obedience, not checking off boxes and staying on track with a schedule.
Structure isn’t Your Enemy, But it isn’t Your Boss, Either
I personally thrive on structure and routine. —And I think most people do. God built into His creation a sense of rest in routine and order, but He also made us with the ability to get creative when our routines are interrupted.
Whether it’s the sense of accomplishment when you check a box on a schedule or move your bookmark from Revelation to Genesis on January 1, structure can provide an extra layer of motivation. Even that negative feeling of “I have to get caught up!” can be a good motivator to be faithful to some each day.
But, again, there’s no set rule that you have to follow a schedule. Sometimes, I read ahead of my schedule so that when there’s a day when I feel like I just need to flip through my Bible and read some familiar encouraging passages, or look for guidance in a particular matter, I have the “wiggle room” to do that without feeling the pressure of keeping up with the schedule.
Don’t Settle for a Substitute!
This may seem odd coming from someone who writes devotional books, but devotional materials should never replace your time in Scripture. It’s easy to use devotional books as a substitute for actual time in the Word, but that’s just not how God designed us to function. It is God’s Word that is a lamp and a light, that we hide in our heart to keep us from sin, not what other people have written about God’s Word.
My blog posts and Hymns for the Heart devotionals are there to buttress your time in God’s Word, not to replace it.
Basing your Christian walk on the words of other Christians, Biblical though they may seem, is dangerous because without a thorough knowledge of what the Bible really says, it is easy to get sucked into the lies Satan likes to disguise with a veneer of truth. The best defense against false doctrine is to know what God’s Word really says.
Take for example the Bereans, whom God records, “were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
Devotional books and Bible study helps are good and useful, but only when tempered with time spent in the Bible itself.
So there you are! The things I have found most helpful so far in my journey of learning to treat my daily time in God’s Word as the essential nourishment that it really is.