I developed the discipline of reading Scripture every day when I was nineteen years of age.  Earlier that year, I had recommitted my life to Jesus Christ and was serious about this decision.  As a young adult, I was under conviction that if I called myself a Christian, I needed to act and behave like a Christian.  If I claimed to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I needed to spend time daily with Jesus Christ.  Praying to him was not enough.  I needed to read, study, and understand his Word.  What I soon discovered is that the more time I spent doing all I just mentioned, the better I knew Jesus, the more I encountered him on a regular basis.

The Psalmist says that God’s Word is a “lamp unto my feet” and a “light unto my path.”  I remembered singing a song about this verse in summer camp.  However, now I was experiencing it for myself.  I was learning it was true, that not only does our knowledge of God increase when we read his Word, but that he also speaks to us through it.  He guides us into an understanding of the direction our lives should take.

The immediate result was that there were certain activities I chose not to involve myself in because, through the Bible, I learned these actions would hurt the heart of God, that they were the opposite of his holy character.  And yet, I also found that no matter how hard I tried, I still fell short of God’s desires for my life, that even though I was saved, I was still a sinner.  Verses about God’s grace and forgiveness freed me from guilt and shame during these times as I recognized that I was worth more than my failures, that Jesus loved me “warts and all” even on my perceived worst day.

In fact, the more I read the Bible, the more it became clear to me that the gospel really is “good news,” that it is a celebration of the fact that Jesus has paid the price for all sin.  Because this is true, I could pursue God’s purposes for my life and future through his grace and with the help and leadership of his Holy Spirit.  There was truly nothing in this world that could keep me from the presence of my Lord each day, from recognizing his deep love and desire to live through me.

I learned all this from reading the Bible, from making the decision to become familiar with its content.  I wonder what such a decision might do for your life.  How might it affect your faith journey?  Which begs several questions, such as where does one start?  How can a person read and become familiar with such a large book, one that contains 66 other books?  What is the best way to begin reading the Bible in order to get to know the Christ of the Bible?

I always encourage people to start with the gospel of John in the New Testament.  Commit to reading a chapter a day.  Experts say it takes three weeks to develop a habit.  That’s twenty-one days.  Conveniently, there are twenty-one chapters in John’s gospel.  Which means that when you finish reading John, you will have developed a habit, but not only that.  You will have also developed a hunger to know more of God through His Word, to continue reading the one and only book that will draw you closer to Jesus each day!