The Keys You Need to Read Your Bible All Year Long
For some, Bible reading is a habit they desire to keep, but struggle to, or are simply new to it. In a recent video, John and Lisa Bevere provided some essential keys that Christians can use to keep their Bible reading goals all year long.
Using 1 Timothy 4:7-8, John Bevere discusses how the apostle Paul tells us that we should train ourselves in godliness.
“That actually means that we’re responsible to develop godliness in our life,” Lisa Bevere says.
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The Beveres points out that only 11% of people in the church read their Bibles on a consistent, daily basis, while right now 60% are desiring to grow in the spiritual disciplines. With that incongruency of the number of people wanting to grow with God but so many not regularly placing Scripture reading as part of their life, where do we go from here?
The first bit of advice that John Bevere provides is to bring the Holy Spirit into your time of Bible reading.
“When I read my Bible in the morning, I always pray and I’ve taught our whole family this, pray that the Holy Spirit will teach you because Jesus said He’s our teacher,” he says.
He also advises that instead of our goal simply being to get through the Scripture that we take the time meditate on the Word and all the Holy Spirit to minister however He desires, including through the prompting of other verses as well and the meditation of different ideas that He brings to our remembrance.
“I think the higher goal is to say, ‘I want a more intimate relationship with God,'” he explains.
Bevere also advises that people get into a consistent Bible reading plan so that you can see the world around you differently, and through this consistency, the hunger and excitement to read more from the Word of God will arise.
“One day the Lord showed me that when we spend time in the Bible, it recalibrates us,” John says.
Lisa Bevere also stressed that consistency instead of a specific time is the bigger goal, especially for those who have young children. John also suggests perhaps starting in the New Testament, including it in with your reading, or taking Exodus a bit slower so that the reading of the measurements for the Tabernacle do not become boring or take you off-focus from the goal of reading God’s Word.
“When you read the Word of God you’re going to be glad you did it. When you spend time meditating, contemplating, asking the Holy Spirit to speak to you when you’re reading the Scripture, you’re going to be glad you did it,” John says.
The Word of God is active and alive, and it is sharper than any double-edged sword (Heb. 4:12). If we want to grow deeper in our relationship with the Lord, than the perfect way to do so is to spend the time reading and mediating on the Bible.
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Abby Trivett is content development editor for Charisma Media.
