15 Minutes a Day Won't Cut It: The Call to an All-Consuming Life with Christ

It’s January 2025. I opened a Bible reading app and a pop up greets me: “Read the Bible this year for just 15 minutes a day!” Fifteen minutes. A quarter of an hour. About the time it takes to respond to a couple emails or load up the dishwasher. It’s slick, it’s doable, and it’s a marketing dream.

I get the heart behind it. Really, I do. They’re trying to encourage people who’ve never cracked open the Bible, or maybe those who only dust it off at Christmas or Easter. It’s a low-bar commitment to ease people into the life-changing, eternal truth of God’s Word. And for that, I’m thankful. I’m thankful for any voice in this noisy world calling people to pick up their Bibles instead of taking the easy route and going to your phone or turning on the TV.

But let’s be honest here. When I think about Jesus, when I think about the magnitude of what he said and did and demands of us, I can’t help but laugh. Fifteen minutes a day? What have we become?

Jesus, God in the flesh, didn’t come to this earth preaching a life of incrementalism. He didn’t say, “Follow me for 15 minutes a day, and then you’re good to go.” No, he said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). That’s not a quarter-hour task. That’s a life-consuming, soul-altering reality.

I used to attend a seeker-friendly church, and let me tell you, I saw its beauty. Prodigals came home. People who’d been burned by religion, or who’d never been to a church found a safe place to hear the gospel. That church opened its arms wide, and the Spirit moved.

But here’s the thing. Seeker-friendly methods are the doorway, not the destination. At some point, the soft invitation has to give way to the hard truth. Jesus doesn’t just want a piece of your life. He wants the whole thing.

Jesus didn’t come so he could be our occasional muse. He came to make us his. Scripture is clear about this. John 15:4 says, “Abide in me and I in you.” Abide – not visit. Abide – not give Him 15 minutes and call it a day. To live this way is to live a CIA life where he becomes our all. That means he’s not just a priority; he is the priority. He’s not just a part of our lives; he’s the center of them.

Here’s the risk: when we market engagement with Christ as a 15-minute habit, we risk creating followers who compartmentalize their walk with him. They follow him in small, neat increments, in carefully carved-out portions of their lives. But Jesus didn’t die for increments. He didn’t rise again for compartments. His Lordship demands our all – every breath, every decision, every moment.

This isn’t about being a religious fanatic. It’s about living in the reality of what Christ himself taught. It’s recognizing him as worthy of our every moment. It’s about letting his love consume us in the best possible way.

So, what do we do with the pop-ups and the seeker-friendly slogans? We respect them for what they are – tools to invite people in. But we don’t stop there. We amplify the call, the challenge, the truth. Jesus is clear: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). That doesn’t leave room for much else. It surely isn’t a life where Christ fits in. That’s a life where Christ is all.

Living a CIA life then isn’t about squeezing Jesus into our day. It’s about building our day around him. It’s about waking up and saying, “Christ is all in this moment, in this task, in this relationship.” It’s about rejecting the lie that we can give Jesus our leftovers, our spare minutes, and still call it devotion. He demands more because he is more. And here’s the beautiful, paradoxical truth: When we give him our all, we don’t lose. We gain. We gain purpose, peace, and the kind of joy that no earthly ambition can ever match.

So, yes, let’s encourage Bible reading plans. Let’s invite people in, no matter how small the first step may seem. But let’s also keep sounding the deeper call: Christ is all. He’s not an addition to your life; he’s the foundation of it. Because when we live a life where he’s our all, we’re not just living for 15 minutes a day. We’re living for eternity.