Today is April 17th. Be honest - how is your New Years Resolution going? Are you still exercising 4 days per week? Does your clean laundry no longer sit in baskets on the floor? Have you stopped eating out 6 times per week? How’s your bible reading plan going?
“The Best System is the One You Will Use” is a weird title for a church’s blog post. I’ll admit it. I’ll also admit that talking about healthy systems that will help you achieve your goals feels like the title of a self-help book. Lend me your ear long enough for me to explain why a healthy system is actually the result of right worship.
During Jesus’s earthly ministry, a Jewish leader asked Jesus what the most important commandment is. Jesus replied: “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
Jesus teaches us to acknowledge who God is and to love him for who he is with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Placing all of our affections on God is right worship!
And what happens when we rightfully worship God? Well, a lot of things. But for the sake of brevity, I’ll give you the answer that I’m looking for: God gives us the gift of his Spirit. With the indwelling of God’s Spirit, we are given spiritual gifts that help us to worship God rightly and build up God’s church so that we can strengthen one another to continue to worship God rightly.
One of those spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12:28 is the gift of administration. For context, Paul is encouraging the church in Corinth to love God and serve His church by operating within their spiritual gifts. I’m willing to bet that you can see where I’m going with this.
Those who are given the gift of administration have the privilege of joining God in God’s work of bringing order and clarity to the world (see Genesis 1). With God’s help, they are able to look at chaos and build systems to sort that chaos. If church members look at the spiritual disciplines (reading God’s word and spending time in prayer are two examples) as ways to help them rightly worship God, then the person with the gift of administration can help edify Jesus’s church by creating systems to help those Christians practice the disciplines.
So, church, do you desire to rightly worship God but struggle to find the time to practice the spiritual disciplines? I get it. And I want to help you. The best system for regular practice of the spiritual disciplines is the system that you will actually use. If you have started a reading plan 4 different times and you just can’t seem to stay faithful in your reading, then your failure is a sign that the system you are trying to follow isn’t working. If a system doesn’t work, change it.
Here is an example of a system that works for me. I am working my way through a chronological bible reading plan. The plan is built in to my physical bible, and it is designed for the reader to read 6 days per week. I bought two of the physical bibles - one to keep at home and one to keep at work. I do my reading either at home or at work after I drop my kids off at school and/or after I go to the gym. Finally, if I miss a day, I ‘catch up’ on the 7th day of the week. If I miss more than one day, I just skip those readings and pick up with where I should be in the plan. Is it a perfect system? No. But it is a system that I actually use which allows me to be consistent.
In order to create a system that you will actually use, you need
The Spirit’s help. Don’t think that faithfulness is a product of your own doing. That is just not true.
A plan (What are you reading? What time of day are you reading? Where are you going to be when you read?)
Self-awareness of your life stage and what kind of schedule you can actually maintain
A plan for how you will handle your own failure
Here’s what I want to encourage you with - you do have the time for God’s word and prayer. If you are a believer, you do have the discipline that you need in order to be faithful to read and pray because you have the Spirit to help you. If you don’t know what to read, find a free bible reading plan. If you can’t read in the morning, then read in the afternoon. If you can’t read in your house, plan time to read in your car in the driveway before you leave. Put your bible in the place where you plan to read and leave it there. Ask a few friends to read with you to keep you accountable.
I don’t care what your system is. But the best system is the one that you will actually use. Tailor your system to your personality and life stage. Most importantly, ask for God to help you to be faithful to worship him rightly.
With hope,
Sam Metheny
Director of Operations
samantha@veritasfayetteville.com