BREAD ALONE?
As a Bible Church, we believe it is important for us to read God's Word.
It is one of those simple, non-spectacular, habits--along with prayer and church attendance--that accounts for so much of our spiritual health or unhealth. No one who neglects these habits will be spiritually healthy. Anyone who invests in them will get healthier.
Listen to Jesus' reply to the devil, "People can't live by only eating bread--they also need every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Matt 4:4)
Food, drink, sleep, exercise, love, family, meaningful work, vacations, savings, pets, community: these are all great things and really make life nice. But by themselves, and all together, they don't add up to the life we were meant by our Creator to live.
To rephrase Jesus' statement as an affirmation: "People will only live when they repeatedly interact with all God's Word."
In my experience, when we let our Bible Reading slide, we put more pressure on other, non-God, things in our lives to provide us with meaning, satisfaction, peace, security, etc. But that's a recipe for disappointment. And disappointment is, over time, a recipe for disaster.
And, when people get stressed or frustrated or sad, it's often Bible Reading that's the first thing to go. (Followed by church attendance, and then prayer.) We chuck God's Word from our life because we feel like it's just a thing to-do, a task, or that it's something we do for God and not for ourselves.
But it sure sounds like Jesus is saying, "To really live life alive, you need to start with God's Word."
So, here are previous year's encouragements to refresh your Bible Reading plan (both of these links include links to the Bible Reading plan I use the most):
2021 BIBLE-READING BIBLE CHURCH
2020 Bible-Reading Plan Plan
(Note: "every word that comes from the mouth of God." Have you read the entire Bible? That's something we should all aspire to do every year or so. It's a very doable endeavor in a year, it's fairly easy to do in two years, and with a small amount of discipline it's almost hard not to do it in three years. If you've never read the entire Bible, consider grabbing one of the plans linked to above and give it a go! [This simple 3-step Bible reading plan for children might be useful for grown-ups too! Especially note the "key to success" at the bottom.])
Bonus:
Our website has several hundred of my previous devotionals. Every single devotional came from something that encouraged, comforted, or challenged me personally. So I commend them to you to revisit, or to share. Devotionals (Or take a second look at the sermons series we've gone through together. Sermons)
Lastly, D.A. Carson encourages people to make use of the M'Cheyne Bible-Reading Plan. If you devote yourself to this, you will understand God's Word and your salvation much better as a result.
