God: Can I have a word with you?

My suggestion to read a chapter a day of one of the four Gospels is mainly to get to know Christ better. The Gospels document his life and the lives of His earliest disciples. It’s a good entry (or re-entry) point because it takes us back to the beginning. We can easily lose sight of what our religion is all about: the person of Jesus Christ. Reading about his life from the four main sources (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) helps us to focus on Him and walk with Him.

Each of us notices early on in reading the Gospel that it’s different from any other book. It’s centered on the person of Christ who is God and man. He is God Incarnate (in the flesh). He is love, mercy, joy, kindness and everything that is good and beautiful Incarnate. Our hearts resonate with those things so they resonate with Christ and everything related to Him. Basically, then, our hearts are moved by the Gospel more than any other piece of literature.

Reading one chapter a day helps to take it slowly and allow the Word to penetrate us. We don’t read Scripture just to read it or say that we’ve read it. We read it to hear God speaking to us. Let Him speak to you. It might be through a quality of Christ that you haven’t noticed before, through a particular character, through an event, or just through one word or phrase. Whatever it is, take it and chew on it. Let it sit with you. Pray on it. It’s God’s Word for you. It will speak to you in a way that is specific and maybe even peculiar to you at this point in your life. You will realize pretty quickly that what just happened was not your doing; it was the Holy Spirit leading you. In receiving the Word, you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.