Advice For The Christian Girl

Reading The Word

  Psalm 1:2
ESV
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.

If you're new

If you're starting on reading the word and have never read it before, I would suggest the Gospels. This is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and after these books, I would suggest the Book of Acts and Romans. The book of Acts to help you understand what happened after Jesus has left and the book of Romans will help you understand the Gospel, the importance of the Gospel and also the now, it talks about our new identity as Children of God and more.

If you have read these books I would then suggest you can either continue finishing the new testament or start reading the old or do both. This isn't a rule but just a suggestion to those new to Bible Studying.

All of us as Christians are called to read the Bible and study the Word. Studying the word isn't for those in ministry, pastors and theologians but it's for all believers in Christ so we can get to know God, know His word, grow in spiritual discernement where we can tell those who are truly from God and those who are not, to not be deceived by false teachings and grow in our walk with God.

-Prioritise it
One of the problems I've noticed is a lot of people tell me that they often forget or neglect their Bible reading. We can't have the perspective to 'find time' (unless it's something very serious) but we should have a perspective to make time. When we have that mindset we will realise most of the reasons why we can't Bible study because we chose to either do other things instead of prioritising it or we simply don't value it.

-Truly love the word
The word is God speaking to us, it's His living word, It's Him! And if we would stop to realise that we don't have a guaranteed tomorrow to read the word we wouldn't treat it as if we have 10 years till we can read it again.

My sister once had a dream about me where I was trying to drive to a certain road but every time I wanted to get there I would go back and start from the start again. Eventually, the person beside me said "Why don't you try reading the Word?"

I then took the Bible that was on my lap (Note the Bible was ALWAYS ON MY LAP) and began reading it but I never bothered reading it before.

After I was done reading I began driving again and I made it to where I wanted to be! I finally reached where I was struggling to head to.

God's message was to tell me that God's word will be my guide. We want the solution in life. We live in an instant gratification generation and patience is not common but if we would stop to look to see God's word is right there and available to us (not everyone) but it's available to you reading this yet we keep going on its life. We battle and have an enemy. The enemy attacks us and tries to harm us and wants to kill, still and destory yet we neglect our sword.

We neglect our faith and where does faith come from??

The word of God girls! (Romans 10:17)

We want to reach peace, we want love, we want freedom, we want to go where God has called us to be and do things for Him yet we are driving and we will keep starting over back to square 1. We will keep being stagnant until we listen to God telling us "Why don't you try reading the word"

How many of us answer "Yes, but not now. Maybe later"

And then procrastinate on things that waste time? On things that are pointless yet, we want to change. Yet we want God to move, yet we want God to help us? Yet we want open doors and breakthroughs?

Do you see how important the word is?

Why do we we need it?
We need it to head in the right direction
To find peace
To have hope
To understand
And finally to know He who made us!!

You won't understand everything perfectly when you'll start
Remove that pressure off your back that tells you that you need instant revelation, you know the word like the back of your hand and have a thousand verses memorised when you first start off.

You probably won't understand most of what you read and you won't always feel inspired and have that fire to read. At the beginning you might have this moment of fire and you just want to read your Bible for hours and there will be moments when you won't feel like reading the word but when you don't feel like reading the word or feel stuck, don't listen to that comes and goes but rather realise that in the long run, reading the Word each day is transforming you even when you don't realise.

When you feed and look after yourself as a child. It's not like the next day you're way taller and are fully developed adult? No, it takes daily looking after yourself, daily feeding yourself and surrounding yourself in the right environment that through time you're transformed and grow mature.

-Pray before you read
Now, to read the word, you need to pray before you begin to read.

What I normally pray before I read God's word is this "Lord, speak to me powerfully through your word. Holy Spirit teach me and reveal to me the mysteries of Your word. Open my heart to receive what you say, convict where there needs conviction and teach where there needs to be learning. Help me to understand what I'm reading and give me the grace to not just be a hearer of this word but a doer and not just a doer but a better communicator of this word. In Jesus name. Amen"

-Write notes and Highlight
I used specific colours to underline some key verses. I underline with one colour characteristics and attributes of God, I underline things I should practice /do, I underline promises, I underline warnings etc

I then write notes on what I read. I suggest this because it helps you to understand what you got from the text vs you just reading and calling it a day. I would write summaries, scripture references and write down ideas.

-Use resources
This comes last for me after I've highlighted and written down my notes. I then use a Bible Commentary and then start searching on the cultural context or research to understand what I read better. I don't always do this and I recommend for you not do this first. You need to read the word for yourself and ask God for guidance before reading what others have interpreted in a text. I read commentaries so I can understand the way things were at the time and to get more perspective that wouldn't know but I don't rely on them.

It's good to use resources but we should never rely on them where we can't read our Bibles at all without them. It's good to know the cultural context but we shouldn't make commentaries, podcasts, sermons and posts our Bible reading as we won't be growing spiritually for ourselves.

I also recommend The Bible Project they have short overviews, summaries and explanations on each book of the Bible and certain words. This can help you especially when it comes to reading the old testament as it will be confusing due to not being familiar with the language and cultural context.

Don't leave it there but read again
Once I'm done with my Bible reading pray that God will keep what I read deeply rooted within my heart.

I do this just to close my Bible reading but I don't leave it there. Something a lot of girls have told me is that when they read scripture they end up forgetting what they have read it doesn't stick.

What helps me is that I don't just read a chapter and move on but I try reading that same verse again with my notes later that day. I normally do this before I go to bed. I read over what I learned and the scriptures again and meditate on them.

Meditate On The Word

Meditating on the word is neglected often but it's very important. We need to not just read scripture but like I'm Pslams 1, be people who meditate on the word. Ponder, think and reflect. Something my dad does is He will try to connect random things or anything with what He read that and He tries to apply it to His life.