Reading the Bible Without Trying to Earn Love

I didn’t realize how tired I was getting from reading scripture like a checklist.

Every time I opened my Bible, there was this quiet pressure humming underneath the words. What am I supposed to do better here? What am I missing? What does this say about the ways I’m still falling short? I don’t think anyone taught me to read it that way explicitly. It just sort of happened over time. Subtle. Persistent. Heavy.

Somewhere along the way, the focus shifted.

A Christocentric lens softened the way I read. Instead of asking, What am I supposed to do better here? I began asking, What is this showing me about who God is? And that question, honestly, changed everything.

Because when Christ becomes the center, God’s love stops feeling theoretical. It stops sounding like a nice idea meant for people who have their lives more together than I do. It becomes personal. Persistent. Almost inconvenient at times.

Christ doesn’t show up in scripture for the polished and put together. He shows up for the tired. The distracted. The ones who think they should be further along by now. The ones who keep circling the same struggles and wondering why growth feels slower than it should.

Which, if I’m honest, feels uncomfortably familiar.

There’s relief in that. And also a little confrontation.

Reading the Bible through Christ changes the tone. It’s no longer God standing back, arms crossed, waiting for us to finally get it right. It’s God moving first. Loving first. Staying even when we struggle to stay present ourselves.

That reframes so much.

Obedience stops being about earning approval. Repentance stops feeling like a shame spiral. Correction stops sounding like rejection. Instead, they become responses to love. Not proof of worthiness, but movement toward relationship.

And that matters, especially for those of us who already carry a quiet belief that love has to be deserved.

It also changes how I sit with the hard passages. The confusing ones. The ones that feel sharp or uncomfortable or just plain heavy. I don’t rush to explain them away anymore. I don’t feel the same urgency to tie them up with a bow.

I hold them up next to Christ. His life. His compassion. The way He treated people. The way He stayed. And if something doesn’t sound like Him, I stay curious. Curious is my favorite place to be. It keeps me open instead of defensive. It leaves room for trust. It allows love to remain the interpretive lens, even when I don’t fully understand yet.

I think that’s what a Christ centered reading does.

It slows us down.

It pulls us out of performance and into relationship.

It gently reminds us that the Bible isn’t primarily about becoming better people.

It’s about knowing a loving God who keeps meeting us exactly where we are.

Not where we think we should be by now. Not where we promise we’ll get eventually.

But right here.

Still learning.

Still growing.

Still loved.