No Bible, No Nothing!

Anyone who knows me or has been hanging around Bridgewood for any length of time has probably heard my mantra “No Bible, No Breakfast!”  I’m a big advocate of early rising and putting first things first in my life. The early rising part comes easy for me, because that is how I am wired.  But the part about putting first things first is no different for me than for anyone else. 

Nearly everyone struggles with prioritizing life around the things that really matter. For a Christ follower, spending time in God’s presence communing with Him in prayer and Bible meditation should obviously be at the top of the list.

A host of believers whom I’ve polled over the past several years have admitted they struggle with keeping it a priority in their life.  In fact nearly two-thirds (63%) admit having no regular devotional time with God during their week. 

I was teaching at a ministry training school on Tuesday night and challenging the students with this “No Bible, No Breakfast!” principle, that “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  I gave the 50 students in attendance a “pop” interactive poll and discovered that over half (52%) of them had not had a concentrated time in reading the Bible that day.

That startling fact prompted me to begin to beseech them in good preacher fashion to put their priorities in right order.  Launching from my “No Bible, No Breakfast” mantra I began an impromptu litany of “No Bible, No ….” exhortations.  No Bible, No Email!  No Bible, No, Facebook!  No Bible, No Newspaper! No Bible, No TV!  No Bible, No Media!  Period!  And then it just slipped out “No Bible, No Nothing!”  And everyone laughed.  That was it.  That was the bottom line.  If our relationship with Jesus Christ is really the top priority in our lives then our day must first begin with time for him and nothing else must supercede it.

Now I went home feeling pretty good about how I had communicated that!  Then the next morning the Lord tested me on it.  I am really enjoying this whole process of blogging.  Nearly every day I wake up with ideas and things burning in my heart to share.  That morning was no different and I couldn’t wait to get at it.  But the Lord caught me off guard as I sensed the Holy Spirit whisper in my mind one other addition to my litany, one I’d overlooked:  No Bible, No Blogging!  Oh, oh, you got me Lord!