UPDATED: In light of this post, I found this amazing offer online. You can download 16 of Beth Moore's ebooks FOR FREE. Click here for the link.
Last year at the end of January, I began my first venture to read through the bible in a year. I was completely and utterly convicted about my lack of bible reading after going through the Personal Disciple Making Plan with our former small group (click on the link to download).
So I began following the reading plan that Brook Hills used when they read through the bible in one year with the Radical Experiment. I started attending Brook Hills in August of that year, so I followed along with the New Testament, but I missed so much in the Old Testament that I'd never gone back and revisited it. I also decided that I'd listen to the sermon that Pastor David preached the week that coincided with my reading.
I'm actually really excited about how far I got in the reading plan. I got to Ecclesiastes. It was a slow process, and I skipped days along the way here and there, but for the most part, I consistently read the bible for an entire year! I cannot tell you how much this has done for my life.
I'm not very good at memorizing things - I'm much more or a writer and storyteller. But, the Old Testament is FULL of stories and expository literature, and I was captivated by the incredible story of redemption that has taken place from just about the beginning of time, namely since The Fall in Genesis 3. I realized over the last year that I only had glimpses of this incredible story from sermons that I've heard and through bible stories I learned in children's church many years ago. I'd never craved God's Word like this before, but somewhere in the days that passed by in 2013, I had a yearning for His Word like never before.
I finished up reading Ecclesiastes around the time that Brook Hills announced that we, as a church, would be walking through the bible again, but this time at a slower pace over the course of two years. Honestly, when I picked up the reading plan, I was giddy. I always get excited about beginning a new sermon series at church, but this was at a whole other level. I was waiting and anticipating January 1st like it was Christmas morning.
Here's my challenge to you: Whether you're a Christian or not, open up a bible, or go to an online bible like biblegateway.com. Begin reading Genesis...and see how the story unfolds. It really is incredible.
I'll be reading along with Brook Hills' 2014 Bible Reading Plan (click the link to download) and following along with the supplementary book by D.A. Carson For the Love of God (click the link to download the free PDF version of the book). I'm also going to begin journaling most days, which is something I used to do, but have gotten away from in the last few years.
How can you grow closer to God in 2014? My hope in prayer for all of us to look back at this day on December 31st of this year and know that God has done a magnificent work in our hearts and in our lives because we were obedient to His calling to dive deep into His Word.
