For the Love of God

What For the Love of God is

For the Love of God is a two-volume daily devotional by D.A. Carson, published by Crossway in 1998 and 1999. It is built around the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan — a schedule devised by the Scottish minister Robert Murray M’Cheyne in the nineteenth century that assigns four chapters of reading a day and carries the reader through the whole Bible in a year, plus a second pass through the New Testament and the Psalms. Each day, Carson takes one of the assigned chapters and writes roughly a page of reflection on it.

Carson is a New Testament scholar who taught for decades at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and has written widely for both academic and lay audiences. The reflections reflect that background: his recurring habit is biblical theology — tracing how a given passage connects to the larger storyline of Scripture, how a theme introduced in one book pays off in another. The aim is not only to comment on the day’s chapter but to teach the reader, over a year, how the Bible holds together as a whole.

Why readers reach for For the Love of God when they want to read the whole Bible

The single biggest practical difference between For the Love of God and most daily devotionals is that it is not really a standalone book — it is a companion to a reading plan. The typical one-page-a-day devotional gives the reader a verse and a reflection and asks nothing else of them. Carson’s does the opposite: it assumes the reader is working through the M’Cheyne schedule, reading several chapters of the Bible each day, and the daily reflection is there to illuminate one of those chapters and stitch it into the larger picture.

This sounds like a small thing. In practice it’s transformative. Readers who stay with it describe a gradual shift in how they read Scripture — the habit of treating verses as isolated fortune-cookie lines loosens, and the instinct to ask how a passage fits the whole story grows. It is less a book to be consumed than a year-long apprenticeship in reading the Bible cohesively, which is why so many readers recommend it specifically to people who want to finally read the whole thing and understand how the pieces connect.

The M’Cheyne reading plan: the engine the whole book runs on

For the Love of God is organized around the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan, a schedule created by Robert Murray M’Cheyne, a Scottish minister of the nineteenth century. The plan assigns four chapters of reading per day across two tracks — one moving through the Old Testament and Gospels, another through the rest of the New Testament and the Psalms — so that over a year the reader covers the entire Bible once and the New Testament and Psalms twice. Carson keeps this plan at the front of each volume and writes his daily reflection on one of the day’s assigned chapters.

This is the structural decision that defines the book, and it cuts both ways. For a reader who follows the plan, the payoff is large: the reflections land on passages the reader has just read, and the cumulative effect is a guided trip through all of Scripture with a scholar pointing out the connections along the way. For a reader who treats the reflections as standalone and skips the reading, much of the value evaporates — Carson is often building on something in the day’s chapters, and the entry can feel like arriving in the middle of a conversation. The plan is not optional decoration. It is the engine.

Carson’s biblical-theology reflections: connecting the day’s chapter to the whole story

What sets Carson’s entries apart from the devotional norm is the recurring move he makes: rather than drawing a single application from the day’s chapter, he tends to trace how that chapter connects to the wider sweep of the Bible. A detail in the Levitical sacrifices points forward to a theme that pays off in Hebrews. A line in a Psalm echoes a promise made in Genesis. A moment in the Gospels reaches back to the prophets. This is biblical theology — reading the parts in light of the whole — and it is Carson’s scholarly specialty rendered in plain, accessible prose.

The result is a devotional that teaches as it goes. Readers regularly describe finishing a year with a noticeably better sense of how the Bible fits together than they had before — not because Carson lectures, but because he models the connecting habit day after day until it starts to rub off. The reflections are meatier than the genre average; a reader looking for a soft landing each morning may find them more demanding than expected, while a reader who wants to actually understand the text usually finds this the most valuable thing the book offers.

The free full text: the PDF, the website, and the daily email

Unusually for a book still in print, the complete text of both volumes of For the Love of God is available free online. Crossway offers it as a downloadable PDF, and The Gospel Coalition — the ministry Carson co-founded — hosts the reflections on the web and delivers the day’s M’Cheyne reading plus Carson’s reflection to a large daily-email list each morning. There is no paywall, no required account, and no app to install; a reader can work through the entire two-year project without spending anything.

This changes the calculus for the book in a way that is worth being explicit about. With most devotionals, the question is which edition to buy. With this one, the question is whether to buy at all — the free email is arguably the best way to build the daily habit, since the reading and the reflection arrive together in the inbox without any effort from the reader. The paperbacks (around $18 a volume) and Kindle editions remain worthwhile for readers who prefer a physical copy, want to read offline, or like to mark up the page, but they are a convenience purchase rather than the only way in.

Pricing

Where For the Love of God falls behind

Presumes the reading. The reflections are written to accompany the M’Cheyne plan’s roughly four chapters a day, and a reader who wants the reflection without doing the reading will get far less out of it. This is by design, not a flaw — but it means For the Love of God is not a low-commitment devotional, and a reader expecting one will be surprised by how much it leans on the reading load behind it.

A demanding pace. Reading the whole Bible in a year, plus a second pass through the New Testament and the Psalms, is a substantial daily commitment. Readers who fall behind on the schedule often find the reflections drift out of sync with where they actually are, and catching up on several days of skipped chapters can feel like a chore rather than a rhythm.

More teaching than comfort. Carson is a scholar, and the entries are meatier and more theological than the warm, consoling tone many readers expect from a morning devotional. A reader looking primarily for emotional encouragement, narrative, or a gentle start to the day will find this one more interested in understanding the text than in soothing the reader.

Two volumes to manage. The project spans two books rather than a single 365-day volume, which is a little more to track in print and a little more to budget for. Readers who like the tidiness of one book covering one calendar year will feel the seam between Volume 1 and Volume 2.

A particular vantage. Carson writes from a broadly Reformed evangelical perspective, and the framing of certain reflections reflects that. The biblical-theology substance travels well across traditions, but readers from Catholic, Orthodox, Latter-day Saint, or Wesleyan backgrounds will occasionally meet a phrase shaped by Carson’s stream and want to translate it into their own.

For the Love of God vs. New Morning Mercies vs. The Songs of Jesus

These three sit near each other on the modern devotional shelf, but they aim at different things. For the Love of God is the whole-Bible companion — tied to the M’Cheyne reading plan, oriented toward teaching the reader how Scripture connects, and meatier than the genre norm. New Morning Mercies, by Paul David Tripp, is the gospel-centered heart devotional — one undated page a day, pastoral and counseling-flavored, returning relentlessly to grace. The Songs of Jesus, by Tim Keller, is the Psalms devotional — a year of short daily reflections walking through the Psalter one piece at a time.

Different strengths. For the Love of God is better at building a panoramic, connected understanding of the whole Bible over a year — but it asks the most of the reader, since it presumes the daily reading. New Morning Mercies is better at re-anchoring the heart in the gospel in five quiet minutes with no outside reading required. The Songs of Jesus is narrower and gentler than Carson, focused entirely on the Psalms, and a good fit for a reader who wants depth in one book rather than a tour of all sixty-six.

If you want a year-long, guided trip through the entire Bible with a scholar showing you how it fits together, Carson is the pick — and it’s free. If you want a short daily gospel reset, choose Tripp. If you want to live in the Psalms for a year, choose Keller. The three are not competing so much as covering different needs, and a reader could reasonably move from one to the next in successive years.

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