Spiritual Amnesia: "God Who?"

COMING SOON...

The Pursuit of Happiness Part 3

 

A Sip

Good evening blogworms! This blog will be finishing off my series on Christian Hedonism with a practical Bible reading plan. I have created this by bringing together several ideas and instructions from the previous post to aid those who would like to put them into practice. As I have said previously, Bible reading is by no means the only way that we see God’s glory, but it is a crucial way that we can regularly see God’s glory if we plan effectively.

As many of us know, reading the Bible can often be viewed as a chore rather than a delight. I know personally that my own personal Bible reading has suffered because of this. It is for this reason that I hope is this post may be used by saints out there to make their Bible reading more productive, more regular and in particular, more pleasing (both to God and to themselves). So, on with the blog!

Spring Time!

BIBLE PASSAGE

This will vary depending on your time available for Bible reading. My preference is to read chronologically through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in order to better grasp the historical context of passages as I go. However, this is by no means the only right way to do read the Bible.
Nevertheless, because of my preference to read the Bible chronologically, once I get to certain passages of the Old Testament (such as detailed outlines of the Mosaic Law) where it is harder to see the glory of God in the Gospel of Jesus Christ than in the New Testament, there is a risk I may forsake reading the Bible as many others have. For this reason, I have chosen to read one Old Testament and one New Testament passage each week.

And since I have not got a lot of time at the moment, I have chosen to read only one chapter of each per week, breaking them up into only a few verses each day. I would love to read more, but as the saying goes, it’s quality that matters, not quantity. That said, if you have more time on your hands, by all means read more. I have also chosen to do my reading early in the morning as my mind is sharper and I am less tired. And since it is the first thing I will read for the day, it’s also beneficial as it should shape my view of the day and give me fuel to live faithfully day-by-day.
So, for example, this week I will be reading Genesis 1 and Matthew 1. I have chosen to read part of each every alternate day to break them up and give me a bit more variety. So on Monday, I will read Genesis 1:1-11. On Tuesday, I will read Matthew 1:1-8. On Wednesday, I will read Genesis 1:12-20. And so forth until Sunday, when I can either take a break or read theology. If I miss any days, I can just carry them forward so no dramas.

So having explained what system I have used to select passages each day, now I will explain how I will read these passages each day.

1) OPENING PRAYER

Since joy in God is a gift from Him and not through techniques, we need to begin our Bible readings cloaked in prayer. This should only be brief. Whilst again there is some liberty in what you pray for, I would suggest praying as John Piper outlines in the acronym IOUS: INCLINE our hearts to the glory of God in His Word (Psalm 119:36); OPEN our eyes to see the glory of God in His Word (Psalm 119:18); UNITE our hearts and minds to see the glory of God in His Word so that all of our being sees the glory, not just parts of us (Psalm 86:11); and finally SATISFY our hearts with the glory of God in His Word (Psalm 90:14).

This prayer will also be a way of keeping us humble and preventing us from being puffed up with knowledge. By crying out in prayer, “Help me see, God!” we are reminded that we are not masters of the universe trying to master God as an object of science, but humble servants asking for an undeserved and satisfying glimpse at His greatness. Ironically and on a side note, the act of praying for God’s help in seeing His glory is also a way of seeing His glory in itself. Prayer is a means of glorifying God afterall.

2) READ

After humbly praying, you should now read the passage once through.

3) MEDITATE

This should be the longest part of the session. This will involve three things. First, you should write the first verse out slowly. Then, once you finish slowly writing the verse out, write what initial thoughts, ideas or questions occurred to you whilst writing the verse out. Finally, you can refer to a Bible commentary and see what insights the writer has for the verse. Throughout this process, be sure to be thinking and mulling these things over in your mind and applying them to your life. After doing this for the first verse, repeat this process for the next verse, and continue until you have meditates over all the verses in the passage.

4) GOD’S GLORY

Flowing on from meditating about the general implications of the passage, now fine tune your gaze. Try and look for what this passage says about God and His works, that is, who He is and what He has done or is doing. What you’re looking for here is for God to reveal His glory to you, that is, His manifest goodness and beauty.

5) GOD’S MESSAGE

Next, try and summarise the passage into a message. This does not mean moralise the passage into an “eternal truth” such as “good things come to those who wait” or “two heads are better than one”. Rather, try and hear what God is saying to you in this passage with reference to law (His command to you) and gospel (His promise to you).

6) MEMORISE

Then, pick what you consider the key verse from the passage and memorise it however you think is best. Eventually, you will memorise one verse from each chapter each week. You can choose to memorise more if you think you can, but I think I can only manage one verse to start off with. Make sure you also memorise the verse citation (ie. the book, chapter and verse) not just the content of the verse so you can find it later if you need to.

7) CLOSING PRAYER

Finally, end the session in the way you started – by praying. In contrast to the first prayer which was brief, this prayer can be as long and as broad as you want. However, it may help to pray the passage you just read. What I mean by this is to turn the words that you just read in the passage into a prayer. This is important for two reasons. Firstly, it will shape your desires to be more biblical and make sure that you pray for a diverse range of biblical things, not just your pet topics. Secondly, it will shape our language so that it is more biblical. This is, after all, what “praying in the Spirit” means. It means to pray the very words that the Holy Spirit Himself inspired.

Waves

Well, I think this has probably been my shortest and perhaps my most “practical” blog post yet. Again, I pray that this will stir you to read your Bibles more effectively and more regularly. But I know that this can only happen not through guilt, but through God opening your eyes and hearts to see reading the Bible not as a boring chore, but as the window through which we can look and see the source of our everlasting happiness – the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So until next time, put that in your cloud and rain it (Jude 12).

Christus Regnat,

MAXi