Basics of Spiritual Maturity 101

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)

​Whenever someone comes to me for counsel regarding some spiritual struggle they are dealing with, the first question I always ask is: What is your daily Bible reading like?  To my amazement they most often respond with an answer like, ‘Not very good,’ ‘sporadic’ or ‘nonexistent.’  Even though Jesus made clear that “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4), many Christians rarely engage in daily Bible reading.  But if we understand the importance eating physical food every day to maintain good physical health, then it stands to reason that we should be consuming spiritual food (God’s word) every day to sustain good spiritual health.  No one would think to eat just two or three times a week, so also we must not read God’s word just two or three times per week—but daily.  Everyday we need to be reading, meditating on, and memorizing God’s word.  The Bible tells us that God has “granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us” (2 Pet. 1:3).  Everything we need to know for living life in this world and for godliness; i.e., for preparing for the next life, comes to us through the “knowledge of him who called us;” i.e., through the knowledge of God.  So also, the Bible tells us that all scripture comes to us from God and is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work”--complete and equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17).  Yet, even those who do read their Bibles every day, often skip around, reading their Bibles in bits and pieces, here and there, as though the Bible were a potpourri of wisdom saying without any rhyme or reason to their order.  However, the Bible is designed to teach us about Christ and tells the story of redemptive history from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.  Thus, the Bible should be read in order.  Not necessarily from cover to cover, but at least from the end of one book to the end of that same book.  I recommend new believers read the gospel of John first, one chapter at a time.  Then they should go to the beginning of Matthew and begin reading one chapter at a time, reading every day, through the entire New Testament.  Then when they are done with the New Testament, they should start in Genesis, but not read the entire Old Testament straight through, but read two books from the Old and one from the New; i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, Leviticus, Numbers, Mark, and so on and so forth.  But whatever method one employs, entire books of the Bible need to be read from start to finish, the Bible needs to be read every day, and one should spend more time in the New Testament than in the Old.