one step closer

a unified story that leads to Jesus….

“It may come as a surprise, but there is no explicit command in Scripture to have a time of worship each day, either as an individual or as a family.”

And so begins Jonathan Gibson’s tome on daily worship — an intriguing beginning — as it is literary tool to help you accomplish just that: a time of worship each day! For while there is no explicit command in Scripture for daily worship, the Bible is positively littered with examples of men and women intentionally, consistently, and regularly pursuing the GOD of the universe.

The aim of my life is to help people grow one step closer to Jesus (it also happens to be the aim of my church family). And it was in my time in seminary that I learned that the Scriptures are not a rule book for how I am supposed to live my life; rather, they are a unified story that leads to Jesus. The Bible is a story of how God created this world for us to be present with him in joy and delight and purpose, how we fell from that purpose due to our sin, and how he is on a mission to set the world to rights, so that humanity, made in his image, might enjoy an eternity with him in a restored earth and heavens.

Therefore, if I want to keep growing one step closer to Jesus (and I do), then I need to keep immersing myself in that story.

Which brings us back to daily worship.

You see, moving one step closer to Jesus won’t just happen, you know, accidentally. It shouldn’t be overly rigid (something I unfortunately tend toward in many areas of my life), but it should be planned. Our relationship with Father, Son, and Spirit is like any relationship — if we want to see it grow and flourish, we have to be intentional about it. And the Bible is the pathway toward a healthy and growing relationship with Jesus and his Father, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

A pathway.

Please note that.
The Bible isn’t an end in itself.
It is not the goal.

Rather, it is the doorway that we open to grow one step closer to Jesus.

So what’s your plan for walking through that doorway on a regular, even daily, basis? How will you structure your daily worship, not in a rigid way, but an intentional way?
What will you do, and how will you do it?
How will you hear from GOD in Scripture, and respond to him in prayer?
How will you include worship, adoration, the reading of the law and the prophets and the writings, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, the historic creeds and catechisms, praise, intercession, and the prayer Jesus gave us? Which of these will you incorporate?

All so that you might grow one step closer to Jesus?

One of the great things about a new year, in my opinion anyway, is the shot at new beginnings and fresh starts it provides. A chance to reflect on how I’ve been doing things, and to talk with our Father about how he may want me to do them differently.

So over the past couple of weeks I’ve been praying, pondering, and researching what my daily worship might look like. And I’ve come up with a few resources to help me in that pursuit this year. I thought it might be helpful to share them with you, as a way to spur you to do the same, because I want you to grow one step closer to Jesus too.

Once again, I plan on reading the whole Bible this year. I’ll be doing it using my Christians Standard Bible (a Schuyler edition). But the way I’ll be reading it is in the order of the way things actually happened. And to help me with that, I’m referencing The Books of the Bible. For example, this translation structures the First Testament in the way the Jews structured it, which is more in line with the story: the law, and the prophets, and the writings (by the way, this is exactly how Jesus spoke about the Scriptures). At the very end is the Chronicles, a two-part work that retells the entire story of the First Testament (placing it at the end makes so much more sense than right after Samuel-Kings).

Since this layout is far closer to the way the story actually played out, I find it a far more enjoyable experience. Go figure.

Along the way, I’ll be constantly using the tools that the wonderful team at the BibleProject makes available, for free, to the world. Their videos overviewing the First Testament, Second Testament, each book of the Bible, and themes found throughout, are an excellent help to see how the Scriptures are a unified story that leads to Jesus. And they have wonderful tools to grow in the study of the story too!

And finally, Jonathan Gibson’s Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship provides some useful structure to ensure that many of the important elements needed to grow one step closer to Jesus are close at hand each day: praise, intercession, confession, catechism, and the like. This enriches my pursuit of Jesus, and keeps me connected and grounded to the tradition of all the disciples of Jesus who have gone before me, protecting me from chronological snobbery.

So there it is.

A few ideas for how I’ll be hoping to grow one step closer to Jesus in 2023. We’ll see what happens. It’s a plan, but I hold it loosely, trusting that our Father will consistently lead me by his Spirit (how great is that!?) closer to him. For, as Augustine wrote, he is the One moving us toward him, so that we may rest.

Not in our Bible reading and study plans.
But in him.

You move us to delight in praising you;
for you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

AUGUSTINE

What’s your plan to grow one step closer to Jesus this year?