How To Spend Time with God in His Word

Spending time with God in His Word is something followers of Christ talk of often, but how often have you been in a conversation with another believer that has never read the Bible for themselves before or has no idea how to spend time with God in His Word, so just doesn’t do it? Unfortunately, this is all too common of a conversation amongst followers of Christ.

When I first became a Christian, I can remember learning the habit of spending time with God as being one of the earliest memories of how my relationship with God began growing. I am so thankful that when my Dad first became a Christian and shared Christ with me, this discipline was one that he instilled in me from the very beginning. Over the years, I grew to understand why I should study God’s Word and how to do so. Many faithful men and women have walked alongside me to encourage me to consistently spend time with God.

Over the years, I’ve grown to view this part of my day as life-giving and as a great privilege as I get to spend time with my Creator. I have learned how this time shifts my focus and attention off of myself and my daily tasks, and gives me a heart of praise to God.

This time with God in the early hours of the morning is the nourishment that I need to get me through each day. It starts my morning in quiet communion before the Lord and carries me on into my day with a heart of worship.

Why is it important to spend time with God?

There are so many reasons why developing a habit of spending time with God in His Word and prayer each day are important! Here are just a few key reasons!

As we spend time in His Word, we grow to know Him and His character more deeply. Just as we grow to know a friend better by spending time with them, so similarly we grow in our relationship with God by spending time with Him.
The Bible is the main way God speaks to us and reveals Himself, His plans, and His purposes to us. As God speaks to us through His Word, we can respond to Him in prayer.
His Word keeps us from sin and helps us to grow in Christ-likeness. As we spend time with God, He reveals our sin, our need for Him, and begins the process of making us more like Christ.
It should be our delight to get to spend time with Him! Because of Christ, we have the honor of having a relationship with the God of the universe, and it should be our greatest joy and satisfaction to spend time with Him! What a great privilege we have as believers!

Don’t just take my word for it! What are some key scriptures pointing us to why spending time with God is important?

Bible Verses About Spending Time With God in His Word

Psalm 19:7-11 gives us great insights into this question!

“The law of the Lord is perfect,
    reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
    making wise the simple;
⁸the precepts of the Lord are right,
    rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
    enlightening the eyes;
⁹the fear of the Lord is clean,
    enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
    and righteous altogether.
¹⁰More to be desired are they than gold,
    even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
    and drippings of the honeycomb.
¹¹Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
    in keeping them there is great reward.“

Look at all of those things I’ve put in bold! The Word of God is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, righteous, more to be desired than gold, and sweeter than honey. It revives our souls, makes us wise, rejoices our hearts, enlightens our eyes, endures forever, and in keeping it there is great reward! I am absolutely blown away every time I read this passage. Why wouldn’t I want, even crave time with God after seeing how good it is and how satisfying time with Him in His Word is meant to be?

Colossians 3:16-17 brings further understanding to the impacts the Word has on our lives:

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

As the Word dwells in us, we can encourage others with it and worship God together out of thankfulness in our hearts to Him. It also continues to work in us all throughout the everyday moments of our lives to help us to do all for God’s glory and name.

Psalm 119:9-11 (but really, have a look for yourself at all of Psalm 119 for an extensive look at this topic!):

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

As we seek God with our whole heart and spend time in His Word, He guards us, keeps our way pure, and keeps us from sin. When His Word is stored up in our hearts and when we have spent time worshipping our Father, He changes our desires to match His and He keeps us from sin.

Other really helpful verses include:

John 15: As we stay connected to Christ, He nourishes our souls and bears fruit in our lives.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9: We should love God with all of our hearts and love others as well. As God’s Word is in our hearts, we should share it as we go through life with others in all that we do, therefore we must know His Word in order to do this! This stems from a heart of loving God and loving others.

2 Timothy 3:16-17: God’s Word is useful for all things in equipping us to follow Him!

Psalm 1: Meditating on God’s Word day and night brings a firm foundation in Him that is never thirsty, but is always nourished by the Word, bearing fruit, and growing closer to Christ.

That is just a small snippet of the goodness explaining the WHY we should spend time with God in His Word. I hope that encourages you to see the joy and satisfaction that comes from spending time with God, getting to know Him, and allowing Him to transform our hearts by His Word and power. Now let’s move on to the HOW to get started.

How to Get Started with Spending Time with God daily

1. First, make a time, a place, and a plan.

When will it happen in your day? Where will you do it so that you are able to focus? What will you spend time reading and doing to spend time with God? Having these things established helps you succeed in actually getting there. As simple as it sounds, it is so easy to not spend set apart time with God when one of those things is missing.

2. Come to the time with your Bible, a notebook, and a pen.

3. Start your time with prayer.

Focus your attention and your heart on God. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you and to work through your time together.

4. Read a passage of scripture.

Spend time hearing from God in His Word. A great place to start reading is in the book of John or one of the other gospels. There are many Bible reading plans that are great too. It is helpful to pick a book of the Bible and read it systematically. This allows you to understand the context of what’s happening in the book and the type of literature you’re reading. So, what do you do when you read? You can simply read! Or, if you’re looking for a little more, I like to use the method of Bible study called IQA and take notes along the way. It is simple and straightforward, but so helpful to guide my thoughts through the Word.

Insights: Gain insights and make observations about the passage. What is the passage saying? This helps to have a look at what is actually happening in the passage without jumping straight to application! This allows your observations to inform your conclusions, thoughts, and applications.

Questions: What questions do you have about this passage? Are there any parts that are confusing? If so, write them down and do a bit of research on them. Are there other verses that might inform what this passage says?

Application: In light of what you’ve learned from your insights and questions, what applications can you make for your own life from this passage? What does it teach you about God and how can you praise Him? What sin do you need to confess? How can this specifically affect your day today?

5. Reflect on what you read and write down thoughts in your journal.

I like to write out some things that stood out to me or if I worked through something like the IQA method mentioned above, I write out my thoughts from this. I also like to write my reflections in prayer form in my journal some days.

6. Respond to what you’ve read in prayer.

Talk to God in prayer about what you read, responding to what He has said to you in His Word. Pray over what you read, how you’d like to apply it to your life, and praise Him for what you learned about Him. Ask Him to carry His truth into your day and help you to stay connected to Him throughout your day.

7. Lastly, spending time with God is not meant to only be a moment in your day when you sit down to spend time with Him, but it is meant to be an all of life kind of thing!

As you go throughout your day, spend time with Him in prayer, meditate on His Word and how it applies to your everyday life, and tell of His greatness to those you interact with!

A few last notes: this is ONE way it could look to spend daily time with God, not the only way. Get creative and use your gifts and abilities to worship God. This time may also look different in different seasons of life, but never give up on pressing in to the difficulties of certain seasons and continuing to get time with God however it may look.

Also, include others in this– share what you are learning, read His Word and pray together, or ask someone to keep you accountable to get time with God each day. And be gracious with yourself- at times you will struggle to get daily time, but don’t give up! Keep seeking the Lord and treasuring Him above all else.

I pray that as you seek to develop this habit of spending time with God, that you will grow to see this time as a great privilege as a follower of Christ and as a part of your day that you can’t live without as you grow to see Him as fully satisfying and His Word as sweeter than honey.

*This resource is meant to be shared! If you found it helpful, please share it with family and friends, use it as you disciple your children or others in your life that you are discipling, and continue passing on a love for spending time with God!*

Looking for more resources on reading God’s Word and discipleship? Check out my Discipleship Resources page for more helpful tools!