How much is enough?
There are many books, primers, teachings and solid advice on prayer, studying the Bible and attending a good church. Along with that comes the auxiliary information that coincides with those identified spiritual disciplines such as fasting, prayer modeling, small group studies whether Sunday school or home groups, your worship experience at meetings, your quiet time with God, the prayer closet and other sincere and meaningful guidance.
All of this is an effort to help Christians grow closer to God and become more educated and mature about their faith. With all this, there are a myriad of prayer journals, Bible reading programs and studies, a host of information on how to make your church gathering experience more enjoyable and beneficial.
Many prayer programs have a listing of prayers, like a checklist, and you keep score of so-called answered prayers; and many Bible studies are broken up into reading segments designed to get you through a certain amount of material in a recognized time frame. There are books on why we need to attend church and engage in Christian fellowship. This is wholly honorable and well intentioned.
In much of this teaching, there is the connotation that you can never pray too much, read your Bible too often, or over attend church and Christian meetings. The undertone is that 鈥渕ore is better.鈥�
So, the questions go out: How much should I pray? How much should I read my Bible, and how much should I attend church or gatherings? How much is enough?
When I honestly evaluate many people蘑菇视频 lives, the state of our society and culture, and the health of the American church at large, I would have to say, surely not enough across the board. How many of us actively engage in these three spiritual disciplines in a consistent meaningful manner? How often do you pray, read the Bible or attend church?
This is a self-examination question not to make anyone feel guilty, unless you are, but to challenge the reader to be honest and real about where they are at with their spiritual efforts.
I have observed that any time a Christian finds themselves wandering or becoming weaker in their Character or faith walk, it generally, but not always, means they are lacking in one of these three spiritual disciplines. Prayer, Bible reading and Church attendance are like the three legs on a stool; you need all three for proper stability, safety and security. Take any one of them away, or weaken any of them, and you will find yourself at spiritual risk, if not falling down.
Almost every time I observe a backslidden or worldly Christian, it comes out that they are woefully lacking, or ignoring one of these actions, which boils down to spiritual malnourishment. As you feed your soul, so you will be.
I do not have an easy prescription or a set number for how many minutes or hours should you pray or read? I do not give a mathematical response to how many Church (sponsored) meetings you should attend. It has been said repeatedly in some fashion or another that 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have to go to church to be a Christian.鈥� A true statement, but that蘑菇视频 like being a soldier without an Army, or a football player without a team. And why wouldn鈥檛 you want to pray to God? Why wouldn鈥檛 you want to read what he has to say?
While I will not give out a number on how much is enough, I will give you the principle. How much should I pray, read the Bible or attend church? Until it makes a difference in your life!
When those spiritual disciplines are making, sustaining and building you into a better Christian that you already are, then you can say I鈥檓 doing enough. You can only coast downhill.
Philippians 3:15 (NIV): 鈥淎ll of us who are mature should take such a view of things and if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.鈥�