Taking a Walk thru 2011. Want to come with?

So why read the Bible every day?

I guess there are thousands of things to be said for that question, but three things are immediate.

Read the Bible?

Read the Bible every day?

And, do I have to read the Bible every day or at all?

I'm going to use Jesus' own words to hit all three of these.

Luke 6: 46 "Why do you call me `Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep, and laid the foundation upon rock;

Luke 8:18 Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him."

Luke 8:21 But He answered and said to them, "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it."

John 15:7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Matthew 11:29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

John 14:21 He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

We read because of faith, because of submission, because of humility and weakness, because of Love for Jesus, because of wanting to abide in Him, because of need, because of raw obedience.

We read the Bible over every other devotional book, because it is the Word that is alive, from the mouth and Spirit and heart of God.

We read it every day because we want to live with Him every day, hear Him every day, receive His guidance every day. Besides this we acknowledge we are needy, spiritually bi-polar, needing every day His touch, His Word to balance us, help us. The power of sin may be broken but without His Spirit guiding us and us following as we read and understand by the Spirit to walk by the Spirit we cannot go on to anything but ruin, deception and stagnation, living, as the lost do, in the futility of their minds.

So I'm going to try to encourage anyone who wants to, to put the Lord to the test this year and read the Bible with the goal of drawing closer to Christ as a follower.

Just going on Jesus' words, He invites everyone to come to Him. First offer. Then learn of me. Our way doesn't work, His does. How do we learn His way other than His Word. Second offer. This is closeness and intimacy. But without faith, it really doesn't work. We have to believe the offer is valid and that the reward is true, and it has to be "worth it" to us. That third seed still haunts me, the one thrown among thorns, so taken up with the issues of life, the desire for other things that that root out of dry ground attracts no attention and we choose not to look to it because so many other things demand our attention and attract our interest.

God made Him a "root out of dry ground" for a reason. Only faith seeks Him and cannot live without Him.

I'm going to recommend a One Year Bible. I've been reading one for 15 years. I know that people say they feel distracted by the OT and then the NT and a psalm and proverb. My experience following Christ and as a pastor trying to get people into the Word is that there is a need to find something simple. Most people will not read their Bible through any other way. There is nothing easier than picking up that Bible and finding the day and reading the passages for that day. This isn't Bible Study. It is spending 15-20 minutes sitting before the Lord, listening. 

So, I'm going to walk through my reading this year, writing a short, focused, discipleship guide as I go. The focus will be following Christ as a disciple, thinking of the words and application and how to look for things that connect the Word to our hearts as we love Him and seek to make disciples who make disciples.

If you're up for it, let's do it together starting January 1.