Perhaps there are some readers who find it a little hard to believe, that Christians are required to perform guilt over their failure to read the bible Every Single Day. Well. Here are some receipts. Here are some links where this exact idea is being taught.
The Real Reason We Avoid Time With God
I rolled over and hit the snooze button on my alarm for the third time.How to Make Your Relationship with God First in Your Life
I had planned on getting up a little earlier than usual in order to spend some time reading my Bible, but, like many other mornings, in the fight between extra sleep and good intentions, sleep won out.
Sure, I was tired. I probably needed that extra sleep. But I somehow didn’t see time with God as something I needed.
Maybe you can relate.
In the daily struggle to balance different areas of our lives and the limited time we have, almost everything else wins out over spending time with God.
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We don’t really see it as “avoiding” time with God, we just think that between everything else we have to do, we don’t have time. When we really look at our lives, though, we know that’s not true. We’re all busy, but we could set aside some time. Why don’t we?
The truth is that often, deep down, we lose sight of who God really is and who we are in light of that. When we view God as anything less than who He is, our desire and motivation to spend time with Him wanes.
If you decide to make your relationship with God first in your life, everything else will naturally fall into place in the right order, creating the fulfilling life you hope to enjoy. Here’s how you can make your relationship with God your top priority:
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Get to know God better through his Word and prayer. Cultivate your relationship with God through personal devotions. Every day, schedule some time to focus on reading and meditating on God’s Word, the Bible. Then pray about how God wants you to apply the passages you’ve read to your life, listen for the Spirit’s responses in your mind, and pray about anything else you’d like, too. Keep a journal in which you can record the biblical insights God gives you, as well as how he answers your prayers.
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| Image text: "Imagine if you checked your Bible as much as you checked Instagram and Facebook." Image source. |
Why Have a Daily Quiet Time?
The key to a joyful and meaningful spiritual life is having that close relationship with God. First you must know Him as your Savior. Then daily seek to draw close to Him. As surely as nutritious food helps the body, so a daily quiet time with the Savior feeds and nourishes the soul. It’s impossible to growth significantly without it.7 Bible Verses Showing The Importance of Quiet Time With God
But your daily quiet time is not just for you! John 4:23 reminds us that the Lord Himself desires your fellowship and delights in your worship. He longs for that one on one time with His child just as any parent would. Why not determine right now, if you haven’t already, that you will make having this special time with the Lord a daily priority?
With our busy lives it is sometimes hard for us as believers to have consistent daily time with God. Many times we get busy. But, the truth is no matter where we may be, we can do our best to find a nice quiet place to reach out and speak with God.Do You Read the Bible Enough? This article says that if you ever think you've done enough bible reading, YOU'RE WRONG, and if you can't manufacture constant desire for more and more bible then you are a bad Christian.
Having alone time with God and being able to collect our thoughts in a peaceful state of mind is very important. Below are 7 Bible verses that stress the importance of the Bible and quiet time with God:
Rather than asking ourselves what is the least amount of Bible we can read and still meet the “required” amount, I propose we never stop asking, how much of the Bible can we possibly get into our hearts and minds. With this mentality, we should all say yes to the Barna question — we all should want to read more of God’s word — not from a sense of duty or obligation, but because they are the words of eternal life (John 6:68)."I Celebrate the Day" by Relient K (lyrics)
In the end, that is why we read the Bible, memorize it, and meditate on it: to get more of God’s word into us. Because, as we delight in the Scriptures, it leads us to delight in God himself. As we employ Bible reading plans, habits of memorization, or strategies for Bible meditation, all of which are good, that is the goal. Not to check off the time as a duty fulfilled, but to treasure Jesus more as we see him in his word.
Because here is where You're finding me, in the exact same place as New Years Eve"Background" by Lecrae (lyrics)
And from the lack of my persistancy
We're less than half as close as I want to be
And it's a shame, the way I want to do these things for You, yetYou haven't read your Bible?!!
Don't even cling to you, take time to sit and glean from You
He ran his finger over the cover and dug out a ditch in the dust, and looked at me and said, "You haven't been reading your Bible". Oh, I was so ashamed! What excuse could I come up with? There was none! The dust laid heavy upon it due to my months of not touching it, and the dust, oh the dust, it condemned me on the spot! The dust stopped my mouth and showed me guilty before God! The dust was the seal of my condemnation! He might as well have just wrote "condemned" in that dust! The dust was my shame!Why You Need to Make God Your First Priority
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There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write "damnation" with your fingers. There are some of you who have not turned over your Bibles for a long, long while, and what think you? I tell you blunt words, but true words. What will God say at last? When you shall come before him, he shall say, "Did you read my Bible?" "No." "I wrote you a letter of mercy; did you read it?" "No." "Rebel! I have sent thee a letter inviting thee to me; didst thou ever read it?" "Lord, I never broke the seal; I kept it shut up." "Wretch!" says God, "then, thou deservest hell, if I sent thee a loving epistle, and thou wouldst not even break the seal; what shall I do unto thee?" Oh, let it not be so with you. Be Bible-readers; be Bible-searchers."
Just like a tree needs roots to go down deep and spread wide in the soil for it to grow strong, healthy branches that can withstand the elements, Christians need to develop deep spiritual roots in Christ. Our lives need to be deeply rooted and grounded in the Word of God and in His love – not our "stuff."
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You may wonder what it means to seek God's face. Maybe you aren't used to hearing that term. It just means we need to take time to cultivate a relationship with God…to get to know Him. We need to learn who we are in Christ and trust what His Word says about us. And with prayer, Bible study and time, we will.
We are to pursue God in prayer, crave time in His Word, and go after a relationship with Him with all of our heart and strength, even if it means sacrificing some of our desires. Because the Bible never tells us to seek things, but instead, "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33 NIV).
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| Image text: "If you don't have time to pray & read scriptures, you are busier than God ever intended you to be." Image source. |
A quiet time is an important part of a Christian’s everyday life, for this is when he goes to a comfortable and rather secluded place in (usually) his own home, where he can draw close to God with no distractions. It should be a place where there are no interruptions from TV, telephone, family member interactions or traffic noises, in other words, silence. A quiet time is a set-aside part of each day for a meeting between a believer and God. It consists of reading a part of the Bible of the believer’s own choosing, and praying.7 Practical Bible Study Tips for the Easily Distracted
Every believer needs a quiet time with the Lord. If Jesus Himself needed it, how much more do we?
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Drawing near to God is a rewarding experience, and once a regular habit of quiet time is created, a specific time for study and prayer is eagerly looked forward to. If our schedules are so full and pressing that we feel we cannot carve out some time daily to meet with our heavenly Father, then a revision of our schedules to weed out the “busyness” is in order.
Despite all of these wonderful tips that have truly transformed my Bible study from a time of frustration to rich deep communion with God, sometimes nothing seems to help me focus.
I’m learning to except these times for what they are—a blatant demonstration of my deep need for grace and mercy.
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| Image text: "I'm too busy to read the bible every day", with a picture of Captain Picard making a very skeptical face. Image source. |
Confessing “Safe Sins”. This article is making a point about how we're not really being authentic and vulnerable with each other if the only "sin" we confess is some little "safe sin" like not reading the bible enough. I'm including it here because it bears witness to the very real phenomenon of Christians "confessing their sin" of not reading the bible enough.
Have you ever been in a small group with people that confess safe sins? Someone will say, “I need to be honest with everyone tonight. I need to have full disclosure and submit myself in honesty. Like ODB from the Wu-Tang Clan, I need to give it to you raw!” So you brace yourself for this crazy moment of authenticity and the person takes a deep breath and says … “I haven’t been reading my Bible enough.”The Importance of Scripture Memorization
Ugh, you, dirty, dirty sinner. I’m not even sure I can be in a small group with you any more. Not reading your Bible enough, that is disgusting. And then once he’s gone someone else will catch the safe sin bug too and will say, “I need to be real too. I haven’t been praying enough.”
Two of you in the same room? Wow, freak shows! I can barely stand it.
Last Sunday I emphasized the importance of making time to spend with God every single day, and I also linked to some ways you can find time for God even when it feels like you can hardly even breathe.The Danger in Our Daily Devotions. This article is about how, even if we're doing our daily devotions, we might be doing them WRONG and that's BAD.
One of the things on that list was the importance of Scripture memorization so that you can always have it in your mind to meditate on throughout the day and even at night as you fall asleep.
If there's one thing I've learned about Imperfect Homemakers, that is that we tend to procrastinate on things because we don't have the perfect system all figured out yet (or maybe we do and we don't have time to implement it.)
Maybe you're waiting until you've got some fancy Scripture memory plan, or maybe you've got something elaborate in mind, but you just can't find the time to do it. Stop waiting until you have the time to memorize scripture and just do it!
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119:11
If you are a Christian, it is crucial for you to have God's word hidden in your heart, and you don't need to put it off another moment!
Instead of watching that TV show — memorize a verse.
Instead of reading that blog post — memorize a verse.
Instead of browsing your Facebook or Instagram feed – memorize a verse
Instead of playing that game on your phone — memorize a verse
You find time to do all those other things; you can find time to memorize Scripture too!
Do we really need to read our Bible every day?
Happy is the man who does (Psalm 1:1). “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2). God’s words revive the soul, grant wisdom, rejoice the heart, enlighten the eyes, and endure forever (Psalm 19:7–9). “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10).
Need has to be the wrong question. Why wouldn’t we want to spend time in a book like that every day?
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| An image of a bible, with the text: "The Unread Bestseller. We have free and ample access to God's Holy Book. Yet, 64% of Americans fail to read the Bible because they claim they are just too busy." Image source. |
Making Time for God
If you are like most women, you probably begin your day early, rushing to get your family fed, dressed, and out the door. You probably have a list of chores and errands that must be completed before supper time. After your evening meal, you might spend some time catching up on chores that went neglected during the day and bathing children. By the time your head hits the pillow you are sound asleep, only to wake up in a few hours to do it all over again.Lesson 63: No Time for God (Acts 24:24-27)
So where does God fit in? You know you should spend more time praying, but you are already pressed for time. You think, ‘God understands. He knows how I struggle just to get the laundry done.’
Yes, God does know. He understands each and every struggle of your day. And He wishes you would tell Him about your day.
Have you ever thought that perhaps your daily struggles would lessen if you simply began your day in conversation with God? If you made a small commitment to rise a little earlier, you could ask God to take the cares of your day and make them His own.When you first make that decision to spend the first moments of your day in prayer, it may be difficult to get up earlier. It may be difficult to stick to it. But I guarantee the rewards will out weigh the costs. You will begin to see incredible changes in your life. The blessings will abound and you will have an inner peace that you have never known.
Every week, we all face opportunities for spiritual advance. There is the opportunity to set your alarm a few minutes early to get up and spend time with the Lord. Or, you can sack in and miss that opportunity.
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| Image text: "God is never too busy to listen. Don't be too busy to talk to him." Image source. |
Here are some articles about what's wrong with us that makes us not read the bible enough. Or about how to change our thinking so we are able to keep the habit of reading the bible. All of these are based on the unspoken assumption that daily bible reading is the ideal which all Christians should be working toward.
Why Christians Don’t Read the Bible
Why Christians Don’t Read the Bible (yes, a completely different article with the same title)
Lee Strobel on Why People Don’t Read the Bible
Three Reasons Why You Don't Read Your Bible
Why Don't We Read Our Bibles?
Make a Habit of Spending Time with God
We were taught that we needed to read the bible every day, and that we needed to enjoy doing it and be motivated by love for God, rather than thinking of it as a chore. If we didn't keep up the habit and manufacture the correct emotions about it, then we were bad Christians. Back then, I had a pretty-close-to-perfect record of reading my bible every day. I did it because I did genuinely love God, but also because missing a day here or there just WAS NOT AN OPTION. And so, looking back on that time, it's difficult to untangle my motivations. (Which is why CONSENT is so important- people have to be able to freely choose to do something or not.) And as you can see from the links above, this is exactly how the church taught me to view "daily devotions." We need to read the bible every day, or if we don't, we at least need to act like we feel guilty about it.
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Related: Christianity and "Selfishness": Here are the Receipts
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