It’s one of the foundations of your spiritual growth in Christ
My journey as a Christian hasn’t been so long, actually. My childhood growing up in the church doesn’t count, I say, because my heart wasn’t in it. It was forced on me, like with many kids. Sadly, forcing it does not produce a genuine faith experience, so it’s ultimately futile!
But I came back around to Christianity about three years ago now, and this time my heart is in it 100%. Now that my faith is genuine, the result of returning to Jesus Christ by choice (the only way it works!) and in my own way has been steady spiritual growth as I continue to seek Him.
I’ve continued adding on to my ‘spiritual workout routine’ gradually with the passage of time. I started out with my prayer routine and visits to the local cathedral, then I began ordering books and researching various topics in Christianity, and at the beginning of this year I added one more practice to the routine, a very basic and indispensable one for any Christian: A daily Bible reading habit. It’s critical to build this habit!
I’ve done two full read-throughs of The Bible before, so this year I’ve started my third. I plan to do one full read-through a year from here on out, year after year after year. Since it’s becoming strongly ingrained as a habit now (I start each morning with The Bible and some coffee), these daily readings will become a part of my life.
I don’t read The Bible to memorize passages so I can quote Scripture all the time. I don’t take notes (although I sometimes copy/paste passages into a TXT file I keep adding to). I’m not trying to deeply analyze each passage, nor do I do deep research on the historical context of every book. I’m not trying to become a Bible scholar; I’m just a Christian who reads his Bible every day and tries his honest best to follow The Word.
Trying to do so is a perilously tall order. It requires total devotion and can even cost you everything (in exchange for gaining everything in return). And no matter how hard any of us try, we’re still guaranteed to stumble anyway!
But that’s not what this article is about. This is about building a Bible reading habit itself, and the benefits of doing it.
