“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24)
There’s something about the New Year that makes everyone want to start fresh. Many people make New Year’s resolutions. There’s a reason gym memberships spike in January! And while the beginning of a new year is a bit arbitrary and man made, it does afford us the opportunity to reflect, to look ahead, and take stock of our lives. Another big one, for Christians at least, is to get into God’s Word more frequently.
Far too often throughout the year we can get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and our spiritual disciplines, which bring us closer to God, fall by the wayside. While there are many rich spiritual disciplines we could cover that have helped countless over the centuries, I want to focus on one of the main ones: the spiritual discipline of reading Scripture.
If you live in America, it’s easy to take God’s Word for granted. With the freedom of religion we’re blessed to have numerous Christian publishing companies producing countless copies and versions of God’s Word. We can walk into a store and buy it, we can download an app on our phone and read it anywhere.
Yet interestingly, sometimes we can have four Bibles sitting on the shelf collecting dust while someone halfway around the world is dying trying to bring God’s Word to a new people group.
God’s Word is powerful. It’s His revelation of Himself to us. We know it’s true, and we know it can be trusted. God’s Word is perfect. We live in a day and age where everyone seeks perfection. They want that perfect job, perfect house, perfect body. But the only things that are really perfect are God and His Word. Why not throw everything we have at knowing it cover to cover, and growing closer to God by meditating on His Word?
Think about this. It would only take you reading less than 4 chapters of the Bible each day to read through it all in a year. That’s an average of just 12 minutes a day! (Here’s a helpful article to show you, you really DO have the time to read your Bible).
So as you reflect on 2019, and enter 2020, my prayer for you is to build your life on the Rock. And the best way to do that is through consistent and faithful time in God’s Word.