Monday, October 27, 2014

Keeping It Real

Can I just be real with you for a second?

I want to humbly say that I mess up on a moment to moment basis. I think thoughts that disgust me. I say words that I regret. I do things I shouldn't, and I don't do many things that I should. My favorite thing about each new morning is that I haven't messed up yet, but it sure doesn't take long for the mistakes to start piling up. Praise the Lord His mercy out weighs my faults! His mercies are new every morning and continue to cover my mess-ups all day long. (Lamentations 3:22-23) He is so good to me!

I am preparing for our 30 days of Bible reading together, and I am getting so excited hoping we have a good sized group join us. Join with me in the preparations through prayer, and give this study to God. Ask that He be glorified and His will for this challenge will be accomplished on our hearts and lives. This challenge is not about me and what I say, it's not about you and what you think. It's all about Him. Let's pray together that we keep the main thing the main thing.

On the real... this idea for this 30 day Bible reading challenge came about one day while I was drying my hair, pondering the Word I had read just a few moments before, and praising Him in song. My first response was huh, interesting idea. I will think about it and pray about it. My very next thought was "...to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." James 4:17. So I sat down at my computer and wrote my challenge invitation to you. Yes. I often work on impulse this way. It's sometimes good and sometimes bad. I knew if I thought too much about it I would talk myself out of it, or just put it off and torture myself with my thoughts for months before surrendering to the idea that it is what I am supposed to do.

Immediately after publishing the post self doubt set in. The negative talk. Why do you think you have the ability to do such a thing? Why would anybody care to join you in such a thing... they already have devotion books to read. Your blog is no comparison to books already published. You are wasting your time... I'm serious. I made myself sick with my thoughts all day while praying for God's help to do what I felt like He had guided me to do.

So, being real with you, I desire for this to be a very God centered month of Bible reading together. I pray that Christ would be seen and not me. All arrows pointing to Him.

We will be using Tim LaHays' book as a guideline for our reading. You can find his book on Amazon for less than $10 if you want your own copy. I highly recommend it. I love studying the Bible in this way without a devotion book or commentary, prayerfully asking the Holy Spirit to give me understanding and to speak to me. I write down verses that stand out and thoughts that I have. I do also use devotion books now and then, but my daily study is just God's Word and I. One reason is that I love to see God's power to speak to me demonstrated. It strengthens my faith in such a profound way. There is a warning though... You must not rely on your own interpretation of scripture. I won't go into this too much right now other than to say that the Bible only means what God means it to mean not what you want it to mean. If you want to know more about why I like to study the Bible this way you can read the first and following posts on this blog, or feel free to ask any questions you have.

Prayerfully preparing, I again invite you to join me for 30 days of Bible reading together in the month of November.

No comments:

Post a Comment