“How’s your spiritual life?”
When most Christians are asked that question, their minds turn toward spiritual disciplines. They reflect on the previous week or month and how regularly they prayed, read the Bible, and so on. These activities have become the measure for many of vibrant Christian faith.
Still, many of us know people who are rigid about these disciplines but lack love and grace in their relationships with others. These regular practices don’t automatically produce the fruit of the Spirit.
The Gospel in Bible Reading
And yet, throughout the years, those who follow Jesus have been greatly helped by spiritual disciplines. The goal of these habits should be to stir up our affections for God, to help us regularly confess and repent of our sins, to rehearse our dependence on God’s grace, and to propel us toward loving our neighbors.
There’s a lot to unpack in that previous sentence! That takes time and instruction, and often when people come into the church they only hear a poor distillation: “Read your Bible and pray every day.”
When it comes to our motivations, humans are drawn more naturally to law than to grace, because we can measure ourselves against a regulation. Well, I only read the Bible four times this week, so my spiritual life must be mediocre.
Some discipleship endeavors reinforce this posture. If we check our boxes each week, we’re growing; if we fall under a certain threshold, we’re stagnant or in spiritual danger.
The gospel of Jesus can make box-checkers uncomfortable. For those who confess Christ, repent of their sins, and trust him alone, the good news should be repeated as often as possible. We are children of the Most High God. He loves us so completely that nothing we ever do can increase or decrease that love.
For the purposes of this particular website, let’s state in terms of Scripture. God does not love us any more when we read the Bible, and he does not love us any less when we don’t.
The Word is a Blessing
Please understand, I am not trying to convince you to read the Bible less often! But I want our motivations to be founded on the very Scriptures we study. As I wrote at the beginning of this year, the Bible points us to God’s word much more often with enticement than with scare tactics.
Christian, do you know how good the word of the Lord is?
The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward. (Psalm 19:7–11)
A Christian disconnected from or uninterested in the Bible is a contradiction. But we are not disobeying God if we do not read the Bible every day. (Our weeks are more similar to each other than our days are, and there are a variety of ways to take in the Bible.)
We Don’t Have To, We Get To
Over the last several years, my family has developed a simple, delightful practice when we go away for vacation. We take long walks together after dinner. We set out as a family to enjoy each other, the weather, and the scenery. It’s now a favorite activity for each one of us.
Do we have to take a walk every evening? Nope. If it’s raining, or very late, or if someone isn’t feeling well, we might skip it, shorten it, or move the time around. But as late afternoon arrives and we start making dinner, we usually talk about where we’ll walk that night.
The walk requires time, energy, and effort, but we love it. Even when we follow the same route on multiple days, we arrive back at the apartment refreshed and happy.
Believers, we don’t have to read the Bible every day. But God has generously provided his word to nourish and bless us. Do you want to be nourished? Do you want to be blessed?
