Enhancing your personal time with God (part 3):

4 Practical Suggestions for Personal Bible Reading

1.31.2024

Look with me at my notes tonight!

Review

Is your devotional time the most important part of your day? If not, why not? Your daily time with God can be a catalyst to a step-by-step closer connection with Him.

Proverbs 4:23 (NLT)

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

What we have inside determines how well we go through tough places in life.

Matthew 4:4 (NLT)

People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

James 4:8 (NKJV)

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you…

We are at any time as close to God as we choose to be – J. Oswald Sanders.

Five Circles of intimacy surrounded Jesus:

The Multitude; The Seventy; The Twelve Disciples; Peter, James, and John; and then John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

I mentioned in past lessons that God spoke to me to make Him first in my day. And He persisted until I said ok.

I eventually became an early riser.

4 principles to boost a desire for a strong devotional time with God.

1. Frequent contact develops closeness.

2. Spiritual strength must be renewed daily. (2 Corinthians 4:16)

3. Time with God creates spiritual power. (Acts 1:8)

4. Make time with Jesus the first priority in your day. (Matthew 6:33; Psalm 63:1)

4 Practical Suggestions for Personal Bible Reading and devotional time with God.

1 Timothy 4:6-8 (PHILLIPS)

Take time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit. Bodily fitness has a certain value, but spiritual fitness is essential both for this present life and for the life to come.

If you do not like to read, then start now to develop an appetite for reading.

The internet age seems to have affected many people’s ability to concentrate!

Divide the time you have in half. Use half of the time you have for reading, and then half for praying.

1. Start slowly.

21 to 28 days begins the formation of a new habit…3 to 4 weeks.

When God first dealt with me about a serious time with Him in the mornings, He reminded me of how I started an exercise habit

I had started jogging for exercise the previous year. I started slowly, and gradually increased my non-stop jogging time from ⅛ of a mile to 5 miles in a few months.

For me to start a habit of spending time with God, I started getting up 10 minutes earlier, then gradually increased the time I spent by the desire I had: 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, then an hour.

Now I generally spend 2 hours or so in the morning with the Lord, and have for decades now.

This is not a thing I have to do to please God! It’s something I want to do because I have an inward yearning.

2. Discipline yourself to be awake and alert.

Stand up to read if necessary.

One minister stood on the side of his bathtub to read so it would hurt if he got sleepy and fell!

I walked back and forth to read. I walked as I prayed.

Read out loud!

You can gradually discipline your body to do what YOU tell it to do.

3. Find a Bible reading plan.

Goals create motivation.

We set goals for ourselves in work and other areas to remain motivated and to create forward motion.

Set spiritual goals.

The Bible is a BIG book. You need a plan to read it with interest.

There are plenty of 365 day Bibles and Bible plans these days.

For many years now, I have used the following pattern with success. I want to be balanced in what I do.

Every day, I read the Old Testament, a Psalm or a Proverb, and the New Testament.

In the New Testament, I usually read a Gospel, Acts or Revelation, and all of the Epistles every single month.

4. Include variety in your reading.

Do you like to eat exactly the same thing with no change every single day?

Would you get tired of eating the same thing with no changes every day?

Reading is exactly the same way with the mind. The mind loves variety.

Rotate between the books you read each day.

J. Oswald Sanders – Spiritual Leadership

Variety is as restful to the mind as to the body.

I use the Olive Tree Bible App on my Ipad.

It has a split screen so you can look at the notes as you read!

There are a huge number of Bibles available on this App.

Read from different translations of the Bible. The idea here is to keep your mind interested!

Use a Study Bible.

Some that I use are:

Jinis Finnings Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible

Life Application Study Bible

The Spirit Filled Life Bible

Holman Christian Standard Study Bible.

NKJV Study Bible

NIV Cultural Background Study Bible

ESV Global Study Bible

Fire Study Bible

Read a good spiritual book along with your Bible reading

I keep several going at all times (7).

You can easily conquer a book if you read one chapter at a time or a portion of a chapter for long chapters.

Take notes when you read.

Find a way to keep notes that you read. I started with notebooks before the internet age.

Now I keep my notes in the cloud.

Here are some great quotes about reading from J. Oswald Sanders – Spiritual Leadership:

Read for spiritual reading and profit.

A person’s character is reflected in the books he reads, for they are the outward expression of his inner hungers and aspirations.

Read little that is to be forgotten. Choose books the way you choose friends.

Five years from now, your character will be largely determined by the books you read and the people with which you associate.

Read to fill the wells of inspiration.

It’s more important to maintain regular, daily fellowship with God than to pray and fast for a week.

Remember, the more frequent the contact, the deeper the intimacy grows.

Learn to feed yourself spiritually. Be a leader. Be a self-feeder!