Just Checking In: How’s Your Bible Reading Plan Going?

Well. Here we are. March is almost over, and you are three months into that reading plan you started. For some, this is the first time that you’ve attempted to read through the entire Bible. There is excitement and new zeal to read the whole thing. Whether it’s a year plan, a chronological plan, or something else, you’ve finally decided to buckle down and read God’s word for yourself. For others, this is the second or third (tenth?) time that you’ve decided to read through the Bible, and all the best intentions have been thwarted by some turn of events. For whatever reason, the Bible reading plan didn’t quite work out last time. So, as Christians do, you’re trying again. I want to give a little encouragement for those who are trying to read through the Bible this year.

Keep Going!

Reading through God’s Word is an amazing privilege. If you are blessed enough to live in a place in the world where you have the Bible in your own language, then you have the awesome ability to read, study, memorize, and meditate on the perfect Word of the living God. You get to be like the Psalmist who says, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). You have the royal duty like the king of Israel who was to, “read in it all the days of his life” (Deut 17:19). More than bread alone, you get to feast on, “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). So my major encouragement is to keep going! If you’ve started reading through the whole Bible, then make a God-dependent commitment to finish. Scripture reading is not your righteousness, only Jesus is. But reading through “every word” “all the days” of your life is the path by which God has ordained your growth (1 Peter 2:2).

Don’t Be Discouraged

You might say, “Yeah, well I’ve already missed ten days on my plan and I’m nowhere close to catching up.” I hear you, but the Christian life is not like a Jenga tower. When a Christian falls, he doesn’t have to start all over. He sets his eyes on Christ, gets back up, and starts running again. So maybe you’ve missed those days in your reading plan. Just pick back up where you left off! There is no shame in taking longer than a year to read through the Bible. Just open God’s word and continue to, “press on to know the LORD” (Hos 6:3). As you build that habit, you will be more and more consistent. One day you will look up, and, by God’s grace, you will have that daily walk with God in His word. But that only happens if you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and pursue God with a Spirit-empowered determination. Like Ezra had “set his heart to study the Law of the LORD,” so we must set our hearts, even when we fall short of our goals.

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God’s word is so good. Our God is worth listening to. He is worth knowing. He has revealed to us His great and precious promises, and He has revealed His glorious gospel through the Word. May we be those who love God and diligently attend to His words. May we be like those who spoke to Joshua who said, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go” (Josh 1:16).

Jacob Crouch 2024