Practical tips for Bible reading
By George Sinclair
You will never have enough time to read the Bible.
If you wait until you have enough time to read the Bible, you will rarely read the Bible. The world, the flesh and the devil will help fill your day. If you wait until you have enough time to read the Bible, you will rarely read the Bible. This means that you have to choose to take time. You will have to sacrifice doing something else so you have time to read God’s word and pray to Him. You need to pray that the Lord will help you set time aside so you can spend time with Him.
Here are some pointers.
First, if something is really important, you want to get to it as early as possible in your day. A follower of Jesus should view a daily time of prayer and Bible reading as one of the most important things you will do in your day. So you should seek to pray and read God’s word as early in your day as possible.
Second, ‘early as possible’ does not necessarily mean first thing in the morning. Some people wake up in the morning fully awake and ready to go. My oldest son is like this. Others, like me, wake up slowly. If I did my Bible reading immediately, I would not remember anything—in fact, I would be lucky if I didn’t just fall back asleep. Similarly, the presence of young children or very early shift work might mean that reading the Bible and praying first thing is not wise.
Third, be careful that you do not let ‘the world, the flesh, and the devil’ define ‘possible.’ It is amazing how important it can seem to me to look at emails or return a call, or whatever, as soon as I am about to read the Bible and pray.