Practical Advice on Daily Bible Reading - Tim Conway

Tim: You've got to have discipline.

If you're going to get up
and read the Bible

at 5 a.m. every morning

or at 6 a.m. every morning,

you've got to have discipline.

Brethren, I am here today

to talk to you about reading your Bible.

And it is sloppy Christian life

if you are not reading your Bible

every single day.

Lay it down.

This is the food for the soul.

This is our life. This is our health.

This is where we see Christ.

This is the Word of God.

This is where God talks to us

and shows us Himself.

If you are not reading
your Bible every day,

that is sloppy and there
is no excuse for it.

Because if you're not
reading your Bible every day,

you're doing other things every day -

thing that are not near as important

and you know it's true.

Brethren, this is
where the Christian life -

healthy Christian life -
this is where it starts.

If you're not in the Word
of God every single day,

there is no excuse for it.

No excuse.

And the discipline of the
Christian life has to start here.

We talked last week
about Bible memorization.

And I wanted to start there
because of how important it is

for the health of the church.

But now we're stepping back a step.

We're talking just about
getting in the Word.

And I'm not talking about reading

four chapters every day.

Listen, you should be working
towards something like that.

I'm not even talking about
reading a whole chapter.

And not all of us are cut out the same.

Not all of us read as well.

Not all of us like to read as much.

For some it's more difficult.

For some, our vocabulary
is greater or lesser.

Some of us are just more wired readers.

Some love to read.

I recognize we're all over the place.

But brethren, this is our food.

This is the food of the Christian life.

And if there's any discipline
you've got to nail down,

even above getting to
Sunday School on time,

it is this.

You've got to be disciplined

in reading the Bible.

You've got to.

When you walk into a church,

and you see people who spiritually

stand head and shoulders above the rest,

when you look throughout history,

they were not Scriptural lightweights.

When you come across William Carey's

and Hudson Taylor's and John G. Paton's,

Adoniram Judson's, Amy Carmichael's,

Andy and Rebecca's,

if you look at their saved life

and their relationship to the Word of God,

they weren't lightweights.

They lived in that book.

If you think that you're going to run -

have some incredible spiritual life

and fruitfulness

and be a vessel fit for the Master's use

and you've got a shoddy
approach to Scripture,

you're sadly mistaken.

You will never excel

until you have excelled in the Word.

I guarantee it.

Why?

Because that's where you draw the life.

That's where you draw the power.

That's where you see the Christ.

It is sanctification by Your Word -

that's what Christ said.

Sanctification is growth
in the Christian life.

It is maturing.

It is being separated further and further.

It is achieving holiness.

It is coming more and more

to the image of Christ.

And it comes through that Word

and there is so substitute.

So how do we do it?

(incomplete thought)

We've got the discipline.

We need to have this delight

and this desire and this trembling

from the Lord.

So you're up at 6 o'clock.

You've got your cup of coffee.

And you've got to factor these things in.

Listen, whatever it takes to be wide awake

when you're in God's Word -

you don't want to do it in a shoddy way.

If you've got to drink tea,

you've got to drink coffee,

look, it might just require you

to get enough exercise in your life

so that you're wide awake at 6 o'clock.

It may require that
you don't eat after 6 p.m.

Look, you've got to do what you've
got to do to make this work.

This is really important.

Discipline.

If you know that eating at 10 o'clock -

I know every once in a while,

we'll leave a prayer meeting

and a bunch of us will go down to Denny's.

Look, if you can't get
up the next morning

after you do that, don't do that.

Just pure and simple.

You say, well, other people do it.

Well, so what what other people do.

If you can't get up to get in the Word

if you do that, don't do it.

That's what discipline is.

Discipline is not always
doing what the crowd does.

Listen, typically the crowd

even in good churches

are not spiritually where they need to be.

And so just doing something
because the crowd does it,

I guarantee, Hudson Taylor
got to where he was

because he was doing exactly
what the crowd wasn't doing.

So there you are.

You've got your Bible in front of you.

Now what do you do?

Look, once you make your first pass

through the whole Bible,

you'll get an idea that
there's some places

that are more exciting.

Usually, Joshua, Judges...

they read pretty well, right?

Numbers.

That first chunk of 2 Chronicles.

Those things can be difficult.

Leviticus can be rather difficult.

(incomplete thought)

I can remember as a new Christian

just starting to get out there

into certain parts of Isaiah,

certain parts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel,

and it was just judgment,
judgment, judgment, judgment.

It was just kind of wearing me out.

But God gives it to us for a reason.

Remember, He that is absolutely perfect

designed this book perfectly.

He put what truth in it

to the degree that He wanted it in there,

He designed it.

And look, Tawfiq is saying

you need to read all of it.

Yes, you need to read all of it.

All of it is the Word of God.

All of it is profitable for
doctrine and reproof,

for correction, for instruction.

It definitely is.

It's all inspired.

I mean, if somebody just told me right now

there was a whole book of
the Bible that I had never read,

I would go home right now and devour it.

The Word of God thrills my soul.

I want to be in it.

But I know that there are some parts

that are more difficult to go through.

And so what you need
to figure out is this:

how to get through all of it

and actually make it through

without wearing yourself out.

Look, I know this,

that just what Hudson Taylor knew,

there are certain parts of Scripture

that can tend to be
drier than other parts.

Or at least that we have
less expectation going in

that it's going to be helpful,

even though God can come
like He did to Taylor

there in Numbers 7.

So it's very important that you pray,

but look, the reality is,
there's some parts of Scripture

that are going to thrill
your soul more than others.

And you've got to figure out
how to get through the hard parts.

And typically, if you're wired this way,

and you can start at Genesis 1:1

and go all the way through, do it.

Do it.

You've got to do that sometimes.

I mean, try that.

You don't have to, but I recommend

that you at least try to do that once.

And look, if you're reading
it at a fairly average clip,

you ought to be able to go
through the whole Bible in a year.

Disciplined people set goals.

Set a goal for when
you're going to get up.

Be goal-driven.

Set a goal for how far you want to get.

I mean, make the goal.

I want to read through
the Bible once this year.

2013 is almost at hand.

Sometimes there's a place

wherever you are just to stop.

Pick up the McCheyne Bible reading program

and just go through the whole Bible.

I think that one actually takes you

through the Old Testament once

and the New Testament twice in one year.

And it has you reading
four different places

in the Bible all the time.

So the day you have to read Numbers 7,

you also get to read several other places

on the same day.

And you can kind of mix it up.

And when you read the
McCheyne Bible reading schedule

you're always in one of
the Gospels I believe.

I've gone through that a number of years.

Please, brethren, don't just
open your Bible randomly

and read wherever.

Read with a purpose.

Read with a goal.

Read to get through the Scriptures.

Read to accomplish reading

everything that God has written to you.

(incomplete thought)

When I was first saved,

I heard John MacArthur say

that he recommended

pick a book and read it through.

Like 1 John.

All the way through every day for 30 days.

That's a great way too.

Sometimes it's good
to mix it up like that.

You don't have to do it
the same all the time.

But be goal oriented.

Give yourself a plan.

Be disciplined and knock it out.

If you've never read
through the whole Bible

in one year, do it.

If there's a certain book of the Bible

that you want to become familiar with,

do it, read Galatians once a day

every day for 30 days.

That will be immensely profitable to you.

If it's a bigger book like Isaiah,

you might want to break that up

into quarters.

And try to a quarter of it a day,

or you might structure it so that you

read through Isaiah once a week

for four weeks.

You do it four times.

Something like that.

The McCheyne - McCheyne's
not the only one.

I just bring him up

because that's the one that
I've been familiar with.

Lots of people have created
Bible reading schedules.

Get you one.

Do it with purpose.

Give yourself to it.

Go through like that.

Brethren, every day.

Every day, make it a practice,

and unless you have some fluke schedule,

start your day.

Wake up. Get your coffee. Get your tea.

Brush your teeth. Wash your face.

Take your shower.

And then get in the Word.

And brethren, I'll tell you
one thing that kills it

is when you try to bite off
more than you can chew

and then you get discouraged

and you drop out.

Don't do that.

You're better off starting out

with ten minutes

and doing it faithfully every single day

and continue to do it

and then broaden to 15 or to 20.

Or start with 20 minutes.

If you suddenly start -

I'm going to do it two hours.

I'm going to read 8 chapters.

There was a year when I tried to read

a minimum of 8 chapters a day.

I wanted to go through
the Bible really fast.

I just wanted the feel of that.

I wanted to get lots of it quick.

Not that I was going to stay anywhere

real long and meditate,

but I wanted the overall
view of the whole Scripture,

and I was trying to nail down at least

8 - 10 chapters a day.

But you know what?

That's the kind of thing you know,

you hear George Mueller
prayed a certain amount

or you come across Leonard Ravenhill

and he said if you don't
pray two hours a day,

you're just basically
sub par or something.

Listen, if you get wrapped up

in that kind of thing,

and you're trying to measure
up to somebody else,

that's not the way to do it.

The way to do it is, yeah,

2013's going to start in two months,

and I want to go through the whole Bible.

And you can create your own Bible schedule

or you can look at some of these.

McCheyne's a good one.

Doesn't it have you in
four places at once?

Yeah.

You can be somewhere in the Pentateuch;

you can be somewhere
in the minor prophets;

you can be somewhere in the epistles;

and somewhere in one of the Gospel's.

Tremendous way to read the Scriptures.

That's four chapters a day.

That's healthy.

Go at half speed.

Read half of each of those chapters.

Or two of them.

And flip flop back and forth

and read the whole Bible in two years.

Some are wired more
for one than the other,

but brethren, do it.

And if you feel like, no, I
want to read repetitiously;

if you feel like I want to
read John till I know it,

do it.

The most important thing
is that you're doing it.

That every day you're getting in there.

Every day you're getting in there.

Brethren, read to understand.

(incomplete thought)

Listen, every one of us

that have been saved
for any amount of time,

we know what it's like
to be trying to read

in Leviticus, and you're
like (nodding off).

And you have to go back and
read the last chapter over again.

Then you're like, falling
out on the thing.

Anybody been there? Where you've tried

to read the same paragraph like 10 times?

Finally, you just give up.

Brethren, if you're falling
off to sleep at night,

that might be an acceptable way,

but that is not acceptable in the morning.

That is not acceptable if it's
happening to you every day.

If it's happening to you,

you're not getting to bed on time.

And you know, I'm recommending
that you do it

before you launch out into your family,

your work, your school,

interacting with others,

but give the Lord your best.

If you're just wired where

you've got a chunk in
the middle of your day

and you're a student

and you've got three hours between classes

and you can sit down and you're wide awake

at that time of the day,

I'm certainly not
going to discourage you.

If you come in here and tell me that,

I'm not going to call
you a godless wretch

because you didn't get
up at 5 a.m. and do it.

Brethren, the most important thing is

you're getting that Word of God

into your eyeballs and into your brain

and into your thinking

and renewing your mind with it.

That's critical.

Read to understand.

Don't read when you're drowsy.

Don't read when there's distractions.

Brethren, it's no good
if you're over at the table

and somebody's trying to watch TV

and you've got one eye over there

and one eye in the book.

You need to read this book

with your whole-hearted devotion

and attention.

Don't read it where there's distraction.

Sometimes you can read -

I find I can sit at a Starbucks

with music on, people talking,

and I can lose myself in
the white noise of it

and be far less distracted
than if I'm at home

sitting in my office

where when I'm trying to read,

I keep noticing other
things that I have to do.

Wherever, brethren.

Typically I do most of my reading

before we have family devotions.

I try between 6 and 7.

From 7 till 7:30, I'm trying to study

for my family devotions,

but from 6 to 7 is that allotted hour

that I want to give myself to my own

personal and devotional Bible reading.

When I go out praying, I may take

my small testament for Bible memorization

or if while I'm praying,
a verse comes to mind,

and I take a small,
tiny little Bible with me.

But the big one comes out in the morning.

Tawfiq: Can I say something

to being careful of the distractions?

I know a lot of us have
Bibles on our phones

and that can be a good thing,

(incomplete thought),

because if you're reading your Bible

and you get a text message,

it can easily distract you.

So like Pastor Tim said,

you have to know yourself.

You have to know your limitations.

It's really good to have that paper

if that digital screen would distract you.

Tim: Yeah, I have a sleep
function on my Mac

and you know what?
That's good to kick that in.

I don't need to have a computer screen on

right in front of my Bible

if it's going to be a distraction.

You guys know what distracts you.

Be honest.

If your phone is
distracting you, turn it off.

If your computer is distracting to you,

turn it off.

If there's any distractions,
turn them off.

Brethren, pray.

George Whitefield.

Many of you know this.

"Above all, my mind being now

more opened and enlarged,

I began to read the Holy Scriptures

upon my knees,

laying aside all other books

and praying over, if possible,

every line and word.

I got more true knowledge

from reading the book of God in one month

than I could ever have acquired

from all the writings of men."

I strongly recommend that you
do not have study bibles

if you are prone to go
look at the notes all the time.

Let God speak to you through His Word

without John MacArthur's interpretation.

You do not need that.

If you don't have discipline
to read God's Word

and to hear God's voice

and meditate on His Word

before you run to the commentary on it,

don't get a study Bible.

Whitefield is right.

The Word of God is pure.

John MacArthur's
interpretation of that Word

is not always.

The best men have wrong interpretations.

And I would just say this,

if you're going to read to profit,

ask questions of the text.

I mean, come to God's Word,

like I just read to you.

Here is Asa.

Ask yourself questions.

Asa is clearly - something about his life

is being pinpointed as not being good.

He sought doctors first.

You ask yourself this -

ask questions of the text.

Is Asa a godly example
or an ungodly example?

So you have to know your Bibles somewhat.

You need to be reading your Bible.

You need to know the context.

Is he a good guy or a bad guy?

What do you say?

What's that?

Yeah, he's one of the good kings.

He was one of the good kings.

And you would want
to compare this to 2 Kings.

Because when you get
these synonymous accounts

you can compare them.

Just like in the synoptic Gospels,

you can compare these accounts.

So he's a good king,
but he did a bad thing.

I mean, you're asking yourself questions.

Is he a good king?

Is this something I should imitate?

No, he's a good king,
but this is something

I shouldn't imitate.

It's kind of like Lot.

Is he righteous? Yes.

Scripture tells us "righteous Lot."

We brought it up the other day.

When he offered his daughters

to the homosexuals, the Sodomites,

was that a good thing?

So you have to be asking
questions of the text.

(incomplete thought)

When God finds fault with Asa

for not pursuing Him before the doctors,

what does that teach me about God?

Oh brethren, theology proper.

The theology of God.

If there's anything we want to find out

when we go to God's Word,

it is who our God is.

What does it teach us about God

when you find God finding fault with Asa

for seeking doctors before he sought God?

What does that teach you about God?

He wants to be sought first.

He wants to be trusted.

He wants to be looked to.

You read that text in the Old Testament.

If you're asking questions of the text -

I just threw down some questions

that I think are very
relevant for asking yourself.

This will help you.

Don't just read blindly.

Ask. Ask.

What is this teaching me about God?

What does this teach me or reveal to me

that I need to believe about God?

Does it reveal something
I need to thank God for?

Should something I'm
reading here produce praise?

Does it reveal something
I need to repent of?

Does it reveal sin in my life?

Does it reveal something

that should influence the way I pray?

(incomplete thought)

This influences me to pray.

Brethren, if all of a sudden I get sick,

or I get a headache,

or my child is ill,

or they get a disease...

Father, You find fault with Asa

for running straight to the doctor.

I'm coming to You, but Lord,

if You don't rise up and intervene

when Your people are coming,

then what good is it?

Lord, why would You tell
us to come to You first

if You never help us?

If when we come to You, You don't help us

and we have to go to the doctor then,

what good is it for You
to tell us in Your Word

that we should come to You first?

Father, why would You tell us that

unless You are going to do
what the doctors can't do?

And if we time and time and
time again go to You first

and You're not doing
what the doctor's can't do

and we have to go to the
doctors to get any help at all,

why would You tell us that in Your Word?

Do you think there's a place
to pray that way? I do.

I think there's a way
to pray definitely that way.

Father, You told us.

This is given to us,
brethren, for our doctrine,

for our teaching, for correction.

You know what correction is.

I'm going in a wrong way.

Correction is God's Word moves me

to the right way.

And so if I'm going to the
doctor without praying,

this is good for correction.

It moves me into the right way.

For instruction in righteousness.

This shows me how
to live a righteous life.

A righteous life is living by faith.

And God is telling us to live by faith.

Don't just run to the doctors

and don't just run to the nurses

and don't run to the medical authorities.

Don't just go to Texas Med Clinic

until you get on your face.

You've got a problem in your family?
Get the whole family on their knees.

My daughter had a serious problem.

We anointed her with oil
and we prayed over her.

And God wasn't pleased to heal her

and we took her to the hospital.

(incomplete thought)

There's some people who will never
take their kids to the hospital.

I'm not saying that.

That may be the way that the
Lord's going to deal with it.

But don't start there.

Start by running to the Lord.
Lord, what would You have me to do?

Ask these questions.

Does it reveal something

I need to change my thinking about?

Brethren, think with me here,

every single encounter with Scripture

ought to confront something about you,

about your sin,

about the way you think of God,

about your faith - everything.

Every encounter with Scripture

ought to be correcting.

It ought to be instilling something.

It ought to be showing you truth.

It ought to be causing you

to refine your thinking.

Something.

Scripture demands a response from us.

It is God's voice.

He's looking to us to respond to His Word

in praise, in awe,
in repentance, in faith.

Remember that.

I need to go to God's Word

and God is expecting response.

Trembling.

To this man will I look.

Trembling at His Word is a response.

Believing His Word is a response.

When you walk away

feeling a thrill in your soul,

brethren, I find that thrilling to my soul

that God doesn't want us
going to the doctors first.

Don't you?

I mean, I find that
something to rejoice over.

I find that something that my faith

can lay its teeth into.

I love that!

God doesn't want us to go there first.

But some response.

As Donald Whitney in his
Spiritual Disciplines,

he says if you can just come away

from Scripture with one thing;

(incomplete thought)

I have a feeling that if we
really looked at it exactly,

how many an hour after
they've read their Bible,

don't remember anything they've read.

It doesn't come into their mind.

And they go through the day

not thinking about what they read.

But if you can shut your Bible

and remember one thing;

if you can key in on one thought,

let it really register in your mind

and give enough time on that thought,

meditate sufficiently on it,

and sometimes it may be 2 or 3 things,

but if you can lay a marker down -

a mental marker -

one thing, one reality, one truth,

if you can remember
at least that one thing,

you'll typically be miles ahead
of what most people

leave their Bible reading with.

And brethren, if you just do that

365 times out of the year,

you come away from your Bible reading

with one thing that you're
able to carry with you

into the day several hours
or through the whole day,

brethren, do you know what that does

in a lifetime?

Massively profitable.

And I think it will really help
if you're asking questions.

If you're asking questions:

What does this teach me about God?

You ask those questions.

Those little markers are going to come.

Because as you're
answering those questions,

as you're saying what does
this teach me about God?

What does this teach me about me?

What does this teach me about the devil?

What does this teach me
about my world I live in?

What does this teach me
about the way man is?

What does this teach me about sin?

What does this teach me
I ought to be repenting of?

How does this teach me how to fight

this good fight of faith?

What does this teach me about Christ?

What does this teach me

about how I ought to relate to Christ?

You're just asking all these questions.

How does my encounter with Scripture,

what sort of response is demanded from me?

You're asking that kind of question.

It will be so helpful.

And then you take one of those things

that seem significant to you

and you just try to make
a mental marker of it.

You give enough time to thinking about it

right there at that moment

that when you walk away
and you're driving to work

or you're walking to work
or you're going somewhere,

you're on your way to church,

it comes back to you.

Wow! God taught me this morning

He doesn't want me
looking to doctors first.

That's huge!

Tawfiq: Something I find
extremely profitable

right on the heels of
what he was just saying,

because after we read,

there is a tendency to pray

before and after you read,

because if you don't think

that the enemy of your soul

is crouching at the door ready to grab

the very things that you just read,

desiring to distract you
with everything else,

then you've forgotten that this is a war.

So highly, highly encourage to pray

before, even during -

you read something, praying that the Lord

would help you to,
the Bible says, to hold fast

to the Word with patience and endurance.