Thought for the Day – Don’t Lose Your Discipline
Nathan Severs shares his Thought For The Day on staying disciplined even when routines are all over the place.
Most of us have probably been out of our normal, probably quite regular, routines for more than 6 weeks now. There’s probably not many of you watching this who can safely say they’ve not asked themselves or someone else at some point what day it is! If you base life around the academic year, you might not have even realised the Easter holidays have been and gone! Will we notice the bank holiday this week? Probably not! Now, try throwing a two week old baby into the mix! Any speck of routine I had left is gone!
This loss of routine probably doesn’t matter in many ways. But I’ve found my Bible reading and prayer a struggle to fit in without a set getting up time or a set going to bed time! Perhaps, when you’re honest, this is the case with you too.
I want to encourage you today, if you need to, to find a time and a place to start or continue in the discipline of reading the bible and perhaps something to go with it that helps you understand it better. The resources are endless online, there are also loads of reading plans on the bible app that most of us have – and this will give you a reminder!
It probably doesn’t need saying, but I’ll say it anyway. This isn’t a box ticking exercise. It doesn’t make your place in heaven more secure and it doesn’t make God love you more.
Reading the bible is a discipline – it takes work and isn’t easy for many. But there are many good reasons to work at it.
The bible is God’s word – it reveals to us who God is and what His plan for us and the whole world is. No one can gain a full understanding of these things by studying the bible once – the most godly men and women would admit that the more they read, the more they realise they don’t understand! Getting to know God is a life-long task.
In addition, we have those famous verses in 2 Timothy 3 which tell us that ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ If we’re not regularly hearing from God’s word we aren’t being equipped for the good works prepared for us to do.
And then there is the need to know the bible so that we can carry out Christ’s commission to us, his disciples, to make more disciples – how can we do this if we aren’t confident in what it says. How can we ‘Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks [us] to give the reason for the hope that [we] have’ (1 Peter 3:15) if we don’t have a clear understanding of how the Bible shows God’s salvation plan for humanity from Genesis to Revelation.
There are many good reasons to keep the discipline of regular bible reading going. Please can I encourage you to be doing this. And then within your friendship groups and whatsapp groups and community groups do be encouraging each other to do it telling each other about how it has helped you recently.
Don’t lose your discipline.