A reader of my blog asked,
How does a believer keep his motivation? I understand the motivation of the new believer, but how does one stay motivated in day-to-day living, year after year?
Another way of putting that question, in biblical terms, is, “How do you keep from losing your first love?” (
Revelation 2:4) When you come to know Christ and put your faith in Him, Jesus changes your life. You’re excited about Him, and everything in life is a contrast to what it was before. But over the long haul, how do you keep that motivation going? How do you sustain a Christ-centred life?
I think the answer to that is really how you sustain a relationship with
any person. When Nanci and I first met and started dating, there was an excitement to our relationship and we had our first love. But you begin to realize that over time certain things will change, and the tendency is to start taking each other for granted.
What do you do about that? You make sure to cultivate your relationship by spending regular time with that person. Even when our girls were small, Nanci and I would have a date night and go out together. The two of us would sometimes go on vacations alone. We called on a lot of babysitters who were people from the church, or our kids would stay at our friends’ homes, or with grandparents. We really believed that the best thing we could do for our children was to have a strong marriage and to enjoy our time together.
So how do you spend time with God?
By opening up His Word and spending regular time there. I know that believers used to talk a lot more about daily devotions and time with God, but I think many people started feeling like, “That is just a check-off the box, superficial kind of Christianity. I don’t want to just think, ‘Okay, I had my quiet time. So now I’m okay, and that’s all it takes.’”
Well, of course that’s not
all it takes. But I would argue that it is a significant part of sustaining our relationship with the Lord, because I need to spend time in God’s Word every day. During the days when I don’t, I really see a difference in my eternal perspective (and my lack of perspective).
So, I would encourage you to spend daily time in God’s Word. It can be a
read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year type of program, or one of many programs that provide daily readings of both Old and New Testament passages. You can go on-line and look at devotional books that help lead you through
Scripture. There are also Bible-read-through groups with a weekly study where the Bible itself is the textbook. The participants have all read through the same portions of Scripture, and anybody can share anything they want from those passages. This helps some with the accountability because you’re asking each other, “How did you do in your daily reading?”
Time in prayer should be integrated into your time in the Word. I confess that when I set aside time in prayer and it is all without reference to God’s Word, I can get sort of lost. So what I will do is pray Scripture, sometimes out loud to myself as I read.
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