If you have been part of the Every Day Faith community you know about the Daily Scripture Guide. It's a thematic list of scripture to guide you through the Word for a month. No commentary. Just God's Words.
I started the Daily Scripture Guide for myself because I need to remind my soul what is true EVERY SINGLE DAY. Within a year I shared it with the community. Two years later it became the free PDF book, "What God Says" where you can find the first 24 Daily Scripture Guides all in one place.
I'm going to walk you through how to make your personalized Daily Scripture Guide. Why? If I'm making them for you why would you do this?
Because the Holy Spirit is here to minister to YOU individually and personally using God's Words. He knows the wounds that need healing AND exactly how to heal them with His love.
Because after all, sin behavior is a manifestation of unbelief, which is a lack of understanding of God’s love.
STEP 1:
Is there a theme or topic that has been coming up? Follow it! Make that the theme you will explore in scripture. Is there a wound you know you’re working through? Make that the focus. Is there a subject you’ve been curious about? Explore it!
Once you’ve picked your theme you are ready for step 2.
STEP 2:
Decide how you want to use you scripture guide. There are two distinct options:
- A list of verses for every day of the month. This is particularly useful if you struggle to know where to start when you sit down with the Word. It’s a great “jumping in” tool.
- A list of multimple verses for every day. This is a great option if you’re struggling with a particular thought/feeling challenge. When I first started the daily scripture guide, it was 20 scriptures I went throught DAILY. I was allowing the Holy Spirit to rewire my soul from fear to love. EVERY DAY I sat down with my bible and my list of verses and I wrote them out. Every. Day. It was the ICU for my mind, will, and emotions.
If you choose option 2 keep your scripture guide a little shorter since you’re going through all of them every day.
STEP 3:
You can do this step in one large chunk of time, or in micro moments. Give yourself a few days at least to complete your first guide.
First, write down any scripture that comes to mind about the theme you’ve picked. You don’t have to know the reference. You don’t even haveto know the whole verse! Just write a few of the words that come to mind.
Next, use your preferred search engine to search the verse fragment to get the reference. Tip: search like this to get the actual scripture and NOT blogs ABOUT that scripture: “eternal life verse”.
Now, start your list. Write down the reference and a very brief summary of the verse. Try to keep the summary to one line or this list will become a doctoral paper. Trust me.
STEP 4:
So now that you’ve exhausted your internal concordance let’s go find the verses you don’t know yet.
Using the same search idea above, you’ll tweak the search for verses about your overall theme. Your search may look like one of these examples:
“bible verses hope”
“God’s love for me verses”
“Jesus light verses”
“forgiveness verses”
You don’t have to make complete sentences, just put the theme and “verses” and you should be good!
IMPORTANT: DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT READ BLOG POSTS AND ARTICLES ABOUT YOUR THEME. Blog posts and articles that are a list of verses about your theme, yes, but avoid people talking about the theme. Why? Because you have no idea if that person is a credible source of teaching. Guard your heart and your mind. Don’t read the blogs.
STEP 5:
Consult a concordance. This is optional. If you have an actual concordance (book or app) you can look up your theme and go through all the verse, similarly to how you would in the search engine step. Sometimes I do this, sometimes I have PLENTY of verses just from the internet search! Go with what is working for you. This is a great option if the internet is just TOO EXTRA for you and you need to cut out all the voices.
STEP 6:
Write down every verse you come across that is about your theme. All of them. This is why it’s helpful to keep the verse summary short. But, if you don’t write a verse summary then you will have a page full of scripture references and no idea what any of them are about. Which is not helpful.
This is not necessarily bible study time, but the HolySpirit WILL meet you in this, so don’t be afraid to stop and spend time in theverses as you are building the guide! Even though you’ve seen and written down all the verses, you’re still going to get SO MUCH out of going through them slowly again later. More on than in a moment.
STEP 7:
Curate and organize your shiny new daily scripture guide! Here are a few ways to organize your list:
- Put them in order of significance to you.
- Arrange them by books of the bible.
- You may or may not have enough verses for every day of the month. THAT’S OK. This is YOUR LIST! You can have 13 verses or 47! Whatever! It’s FOR YOU, there is no standard and no one is grading your work!
- If you are making a daily scripture guide for each day of the month don’t be afraid to give yourself 2-5 verses a day!
- You have the option of separating verses by day, or to group by flow. Example: if you have John 15:1-5 it may feel more organic to group v.1-4 together and let v.5 stand alone. You do you.
- If a verse doesn’t make sense to you at this time, feel free to cut it.
- If there’s a verse that doesn’t fit your theme but you really want it, add it.
Using your Personalized Daily Scripture Guide
Now you’ve got an awesome list of Truth from God specifically for you! Here are two ways to use it:
- Each day, consult your list and then write out the scripture of the day. Writing our scripture is a trick that makes your mind focus. It’s a type of meditation. It makes your thoughts slow down and you’ll “see” words in a new way because the Holy Spirit is there guiding you. You remember it more when you write it out! Also, you can write out the verse making it personal with your name, or “I” and “me”.
- If you made a collection of verses meant to be used every day try this trick: make a declaration out of each verse. You’ve just turned your scripture guide into a powerful truth bomb! Example:
- Luke 10:19 “You’ve given me authority overall darkness and nothing can hurt me!”
- Ephesians 6:12 “My fight is not with otherhumans, but with satan and his forces.”
- Romans 8:11 “the same Spirit that raisedJesus from the dead lives in me and brings life to me!”
Now you can just read through your entire list in a few moments, speaking truth out loud! Then, if one in particular gets you in the feels, you can stop and soak in it.
No matter what, make it easy to use. Put your list where you can easily get it. Print it out, keep it in your phone, whatever works for you. If you like notebooks number the page, then write the page number and the title of your daily scripture guide in the front of your journal. Or use a book mark.
Don’t make it religious. This is to support you, not rule you.
You’re going to LOVE doing this! Enjoy!