Monday, November 21, 2011

Instructions for daily Bible reading

We are to be in the Word every single day, seven days a week. Take a look at Psalm 1:1, for example. But, what does that look like today and in our busy world?


Let's face it. If we read the bible first and foremost...and before we read and other texts, books, Internet stuff, emails, etc., then we would actually have the time to read it. Never mind how actually that is what we are supposed to do anyway.

If we did, we would put God and his Word first in our lives. We would then remember it and apply it to our lives. We would also be able to adjust our course as necessary ifwe were daily in the Bible.we would know when we were acting faithful and when we were unfaithfuland that is how we would know how and when to adjust our course and state of being.


This is all great. But, how can we read the Bible most effectively, where we can gain the most insight? How can we increase the chances we will understand what we read and figure out how to apply it best in our lives? I will give you the most simplistic answer today and will talk more about this in the future. 


1 PRAY: First of all, always and without fail, we need to approach the Word of God with constant, ceaseless prayer. We should pray before we read one word, as we read, and after we read. We should connect with the Lord and ask him to reveal the Word to us and to help us understand it. We should also ask him to tell uswhat we should apply to our lives.


2 JOURNAL IT (WRITE IT): Next, we should have our journals with us so we can write what we read and ask several questions of each verse and of the main words and names of people and places. We need to then write the answers we find from the text as well and what more we want to learn from it. We also need tow rite how we're going to apply it to our lives, questions we do not find the answers for right away and want to return to, what God tells us, and what we tell God about the passage we read. 


Why should we write? It makes us interact with the text. The words on the page become real to us. When we interact with the text, it becomes alive and applicable to us.
Writing as we read the holy Word of God slows us down and makes us think about what we read. 

3 RECORD IT: Make sure that you keep an ongoing list every year of the passages you read so you can read new ones the following year, along with any you want to duplicate. 

4 READ THE BIBLE ALL THE WAY THROUGH (AGAIN): If you have never gone all the way through the Bible, do so this year (or take two years).

If you have not read the Bible all the way through in the last 2 to 3 years, do so. You will forget some of what you read. Even if you have a full record of your reading that you can go back to, it's important to look at the text directly. So, if it's been a while, you might want to plan to go through the Bible this year. Or... In the next two years. If you go through it in 2 years, only have 2 years between readings. 

Why go through the Bible so much and so often? You will forget what you read and need a fresh perspective on what you read. Your experiences will make you look at the Word differently today than you saw it the last time you went through it. 

We will discuss more about how to get the most out of your Bible reading in the days to come. 

Again, this is the most simple approach to how to get the most out of reading your Bible. 


Sent from my Kindle Fire

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