Beginning Christian Spirituality

The central reality of Christian spirituality is this:

John 8:31-32  So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, (32)  and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

There is a startling array of things that a new Christian can do or that people will recommend to them.

There are (and this is good) like 50 spiritual disciplines to choose from.

There are a million Bible reading plans.

There are 25 million prayer books.

But I want to simplfy things.

When you first become a Christian or want to be more serious about your faith in Christ, here is a three step plan to help you for the first few months.

1. Say the Lord’s prayer daily. Jesus said to pray this way. God answers prayers according to his will and what prayer is more in line with God’s will than one Jesus said to pray?
2. Read a chapter of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). These are the books about Jesus. If you want to “abide in” Jesus’ words, you’ve got to know them.
3. Read a chapter of Proverbs a day and read the chapter that corresponds with the date (31 chapters in the book).

I recommend writing in a journal when you read. This will help you to do three things:

1. Write questions.
2. Write down what you’ve learned about Jesus, his greatness, his teachings, and about daily nuts and bolts wisdom.
3. Write down what you could do better in life.

I suspect that a plan like this would be very helpful for busy parents, people who hate reading, long time Christians who do not know Jesus very well, or Christian academics who study the Bible for work but who do not store it in their hearts.