Keeping That One Resolution We All Make…

It’s one of the most common New Year’s resolutions among followers of Jesus: “This year I will read the entire Bible!” And we start out all gung-ho and read every day for 3 or 4 days, maybe a week… Then we miss a day or two – we plan to catch up “soon,” and we make a couple of stabs at it, but eventually, we just forget about the whole thing…

We know reading the Bible is important. We know it feeds us and teaches us and shapes our lives, our decision-making, the very quality of our lives on earth… But many of us feel defeated when we try to keep up with a Bible reading plan.

So here are some tips and a link to a plan that just might make 2013 the year we actually read the entire Bible:

• Get a version of the Bible you can read and understand. This cannot be stressed enough – (and I’ve got zero interest in debating with anybody who thinks there’s only one “authorized version.”) For most of us, the King James or the New American Standard versions are not very readable. I recommend the New Living Translation – I’ve used it since 2008 (here’s a blog post about why I changed versions: The NLT and Me).
  
• Do not, I repeat, DO NOT open your Bible up at Genesis and start reading with a plan to go straight through to Revelation! You will get bogged down pretty quickly in some boring stuff – legal codes, census counts, obscure history – and your eyes will glaze over and you’ll give up. There are better ways to do it – more on that in a minute…
• Read earlier in the day rather than later. I used to try to read at bedtime – I lost count of how many times I fell asleep on God’s Holy Word. Make it a practice to read early in the day, maybe at breakfast or on a coffee break.
• Relax – don’t get stressed if you miss a day. There’s no law, or Bible verse, or church requirement that says you can’t miss. So if you get behind a day or three or 30 – just pick up reading on the next day. The object is to read the entire Bible – if it takes you 18 months to do, no big deal.

Here’s a plan that might work well for a lot of people. Advantages include:

• Providing variety throughout the week by alternating different types of scripture. The benefit is you don’t get bogged down for days in the less than stimulating portions of the Bible.
• Providing continuity by reading the same scripture type each day of the week.
• Providing an opportunity to see the many interconnections between sections of Scripture. One day you may be reading Paul’s teaching about God’s covenant with Abraham in Romans, and in the next day or two you’ll be reading about the actual establishment of the covenant in Genesis.

In a nutshell, here’s how it works:

1. Sundays: New Testament Epistles
2. Mondays: Penteteuch/The Law (Genesis through Deuteronomy)
3. Tuesdays: Old Testament history
4. Wednesdays: Psalms
5. Thursdays: Old Testament poetry
6. Fridays: Prophecy
7. Saturdays: Gospels

We have hard copies of this plan, and several others, including the Daily Walk magazine available in the foyer at New Hope – or here’s a link to a printable copy in PDF.

If I can help you with finding a Bible or a plan to help you read it – please drop me a note!

 

 

Friday Remix: Batteries not included…

 

I have a fountain on my desk. It’s cheap and plastic, but it came with real rocks!  I call it my “stream of living water…” But there’s an unanticipated problem: the batteries wear out, and the “never-ending stream” stops flowing.  Of course the issue is the power source – double “A”batteries are only temporary, they get weaker and weaker, and eventually they die.

And the truth is, the same thing happens to me and my “stream of living water” if I’m only drawing from a fleshly, temporal power source. If I “feed the stream,” it will only last for a little while. If it’s fed by “Christ in me,” it will be an unending source of living, and life-giving, water.

Jesus said if we drink that water, we would never be thirsty again. Well, I still get thirsty, but it’s not Jesus’ fault. I let that well run dry when I disconnect from His power source and try to live in my own strength. How long will I just use the Bible for sermon material? How often will I have the crashing realization when I start to pray in a worship service that this is the first time I’ve prayed in days? How many times will I try to tell thirsty people where to find water, while speaking through a parched throat and cracked, dry lips?

The apostle Paul had the right idea, when he said in Ephesians 5:18 that we should put ourselves in the place where we can continuously be filled with the Holy Spirit. My prayer today is to be constantly full of the Holy Spirit, and for my flesh to die to the point where I can say with Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

Sunday Replay 04.06.08

What a gorgeous day!  It doesn’t get much better than spring in Indiana!  Blue sky, sunshine, nice warm temperatures… It was a day made for being outside!

In the house, the worship band did another terrific job!  I’m loving the various people who are stepping up to get involved, and the continuous improvement is incredible.  If someone had told you two or three months ago that we would be experiencing worship like we did today, would you have believed them?  Me neither!  But I believe it, because I’ve seen it.  Thanks worship team – we’ve got to get you guys a catchy name of some kind – for helping us enter God’s presence.

We started our new message series, “Homerun! Knocking Life Out of the Park,” with a bang…  The “vintage” radio homerun calls were great.  I don’t think I’ll soon forget, “Get out your rye bread, Grandma, it’s grand salami time!”  And yeah, you really had to be here…

This morning’s message was focused on spending purposeful, intentional, consistent time with God on a daily basis.  We looked at the life of Jesus to see that He got up early, went off by Himself and prayed.  We saw that He had a habit of going off into the wilderness by Himself to spend time with the Father, and that on at least one occasion He spent an entire night in prayer.  We saw that Jesus experienced some things in His life because He spent time with the Father: Jesus got direction, focus, and strength because He was with the Father.  We can experience those same things in our own lives if we will spend time with God.

It was so exciting to see nearly every hand raised, making commitments to begin spending that purposeful, meaningful time with God on a daily basis.  Now it’s important that we encourage and support one another in that, and that we hold each other accountable for walking out that commitment.

We just finished a fantastic combine Elders and Deacons meeting.  We talked mostly about vision, and walked our property talking about the things we see in our future as we seek God’s guidance and direction.  These are exciting times at Jubilee, folks, and the best is still to come.  Ask and elder or deacon what it means when you see the tape on the floor…

Coming up soon is our video marriage conference with Dr. Emerson Eggerichs (05.10.08), and OMG! Bible Beach Club is just 10 WEEKS AWAY!!!  That’s exciting and scary at the same time!

Have a great week!