Bible Reading Plans

With New Year’s Day quickly approaching, many of us are contemplating our New Year’s resolutions. Hopefully, each of us is considering the importance of reading the Bible daily in 2007. Below are some links to websites that will assist you in your bible reading efforts this year.

Back to the Bible – Offers five unique guides that you can follow as you read through the Bible.

• Chronological – Read the events of the Bible as they occurred chronologically. For example, the Book of Job is integrated with Genesis because Job lived before Abraham.
• Historical – Read the books of the Bible as they occurred in the Hebrew and Greek traditions (the order in which they were written). For example, the Old Testament books in the Hebrew bible do not occur in the same order as they do in our English Bible. The New Testament books are arranged according to their dat of writing as well.
• Old and New Testament Together – Read the Old Testament and New Testament together. Your knowledge of the Old Testament will be enhanced by what you read simultaneously in the New Testament.
• Beginning to End – With this guide there are no surprises. You simply read through the Bible from start to finish, from Genesis to Revelation.
• Blended– If you prefer not to read straight through the Bible but want to add variety to your Scripture reading. For example, while you are reading the Old Testament book of Isaiah, you are also reading the New Testament book of Mark to heighten the variety of your Bible reading.

Bible Plans – Offers thirteen Bible reading plans. View each plan on the web and/or be reminded by receiving it each day by email. Each plan is available in several languages and translations. There are no charges or strings attached. You will not be sent any advertisements or have your name added to other lists if you subscribe. You can un-subscribe from any plan any time with one click.

Heartlight has brought together several Bible reading plans to choose from. Find one that suits your tastes, and dig in!

• Straight Through – Read the entire Bible in one year, from Genesis to Revelation.
• Different Topics– Each day of the week, you’ll be reading from a different section of the Bible.
• New Testament and Old Testament– Read the whole Bible, with something from both Testaments each day.
• The Story of the Bible– A chronologically arranged reading of the story of the Bible.
• New Testament, Psalms & Proverbs– Get the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs in one year.

Studylight offers five online reading plans where you choose your plan and Bible version. You can also track your progress online. Each day’s reading also has a link for audio where you can hear that day’s passage read.

Be sure to check out the resources page at our church website.

www.tbconline.org

Questions for a New Year

Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. “Consider your ways!” (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.

Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we’re going and where we should be going.

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up and get our bearings. For starters, here are 10 questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God:

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in 10 years? In eternity?

In addition to these questions, here are 21 more to help you “Consider your ways.” Think on the entire list at one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.

11. What’s the most important decision you need to make this year?

12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what’s one way you could simplify in that area?

13. What’s the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?

14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?

15. Who do you most want to encourage this year?

16. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?

17. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?

18. What’s one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?

19. What’s one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?

20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?

21. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?

22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?

23. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?

24. What’s the most important trip you want to take this year?

25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?

26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?

27. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?

28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?

29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?

30. What’s the most important new item you want to buy this year?

31. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by articulating which person you most want to encourage this year, you will be more likely to remember to encourage that person than if you hadn’t considered the question.

If you’ve found these questions helpful, you might want to put them someplace — in a day planner, PDA, calendar, bulletin board, etc. — where you can review them more frequently than once a year.

So let’s evaluate our lives, make plans and goals, and live this new year with biblical diligence, remembering that, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage” (Proverbs 21:5). But in all things let’s also remember our dependence on our King who said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Don Whitney is associate professor of spiritual formation at MidwesternBaptist Theological Seminary and author of “Simplify Your SpiritualLife” (NavPress, 2003). To register for a free monthly e-publicationfrom Whitney, “The SpiritualDisciplines.org Newsletter,” with new andreprinted articles and more, go to www.SpiritualDisciplines.org/newsletter.html.

 

You can find this and other ministry-related articles in the Baptist Press archives at www.bpnews.net . Baptist Press is an international wire service that provides news with a Christian perspective to inform and equip readers for life, work and
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Family Photo

Photo taken Sunday, December 24, 2006 at Tabernacle Baptist Church.

 

The Davis Spa

Yesterday (Christmas day) morning, after opening presents I went back to bed. I have some kind of stomach bug that seems to have infected half of Wilson. Last night, I went into the Living Room to play the piano with the girls. I was wondering why there were cucumbers on the chair and then I saw these pictures that Joanna took while I was asleep. Apparently, Bethany, Abigail and Hannah decided to set up the Davis Spa and pamper each other a little bit.

Meaningful Christmas Tradition

Several years ago I heard my good friend Rand Hummel relay a tradition that his family practices every Christmas. Since then, each Christmas Joanna and I have tried to incorporate the same tradition into our Christmas celebration.

Yesterday morning (Christmas day), we enjoyed the time with our family opening our Christmas presents. Before the children were allowed to play with their new toys I said, “Now, let’s wait just a minute. We all got some good gifts this year, didn’t we?” “Yes sir,” they all replied. I asked, “But what is the best Christmas gift?” Hannah, our seven-year-old daughter replied, “Jesus.” I asked her why. She said, “Because He came to die for our sins.” Joanna then pulled out a stack of Christmas cards from church members, family, and friends from all around the world. That is what Rand said that he and his family did each Christmas. They would read the cards and pray for their friends. Before our children put their gifts away or played with any of them we took time to remember the true meaning of Christmas and to remember our friends who thought of us this Christmas.

Our Children Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

See Caleb | See Bethany | See Abigail | See Hannah

Christmas is Costly

It cost Mary and Joseph the comforts of home during a long period of exile in Egypt to protect the little Babe. It cost mothers in and around Bethlehem the massacre of their babies by the cruel order of Herod. It cost the shepherds the complacency of their shepherds’ life, with the call to the manger and to tell the good news. It cost the wise men a long journey and expensive gifts and changed lives. It cost the early apostles and the early church persecution and sometimes death. It cost missionaries of Christ untold suffering and privation to spread the good news. It cost Christian martyrs in all ages their lives for Christ’s sake. More than all this, it cost God the Father His own Son–He sent Him to the earth to save men. It cost Jesus a life of sacrifice and service, a death cruel and unmatched in history.

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I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas (Part 2)

In the last post I mentioned that I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. Of course, I would love to have snow this Christmas. My children love snow. My wife loves snow. I love snow, at least for a little while and then I’m glad to see it go. One of my favorite holiday classics is the song “White Christmas.” The song wasn’t actually introduced in the film by the same name starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. That musical was produced in 1954. Bing Crosby first sang the song in the less familiar holiday film entitled “Holiday Inn” produced in 1942. In that version Crosby sang it as a duet with Marjorie Reynolds.

Enough about the song. Yesterday, I mentioned that I was dreaming of a white Christmas and the whiteness of a pure heart.

2. I’m Dreaming of the Whiteness of a Plentiful Harvest

John 4:35 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. )

Matt. 9:37-38 Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few: Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

What do you see when you look on the fields? We see a world in turmoil. It doesn’t take a lot of research to find out how desperate the times really are. We see people today searching for meaning and purpose in their lives. We see unrest in their souls.

We see a continual longing for material satisfaction. As long as mankind seeks satisfaction in material things, that all elusive goal of satisfaction will remain just out of their reach. “How much money will it take to make you happy?” Always the answer is, “a little bit more.”

We see a world population around 6 billion people, most who have no real knowledge of Jesus Christ. We see a religious world, but a world at war with the true God.

We live in a world that has perverted God’s good gift of sex, given for one man and one woman in the union of marriage. Mankind has a distorted and completely selfish view of sex. The physical relationship between a man and a woman is now simply an animalistic act for personal satisfaction. It is frightening to consider what our children face in their future.

Times are changing–for the worst! Romans 1 has become a living commentary for our day. God says that there will be consequences for forgetting and ignoring God. Last year the number of people infected with HIV reached an all-time high of 40.3 million, that’s right MILLION people.

I spent about half an hour this morning reading statistic after statistic of depressing news concerning violence, abortion, murder, etc. I was again reminded of the fields that are “white unto harvest.”

What does Jesus mean when He says that the fields are “white unto harvest?” He means that the harvest is ready to be gathered. People are searching for answers, answers that only we who know Jesus Christ can give them. They are ready if we will simply obey.

Jesus says we are to (1) Lift Up Our Eyes. Where are your eyes? Are they only on yourself. Take a moment to really consider this first point. We will never see God’s harvest unless we take our eyes off of ourselves and notice others who are in need all around us. I remember the story of a famous preacher who looked out his window on the park below. He wept as his heart broke for the people. Someone asked him what was wrong. He replied, “There are so many of them and they are without Jesus.” When you go shopping for Christmas presents sometime this week, take a moment to deliberately look at all of the people around you. The reason for Christmas is not the gift that you are buying in that store. The reason for Christmas is the gift of Jesus Christ to all of the people around you. Those same people that you are complaining about in traffic or in long store lines. Slow down this holdiay season and take a moment to take your eyes off of yourself and (2) Look on the fields. Most of the people around us need the good news. They are searching for good news. Jesus said that the harvest is ready to be gathered. What a shame for the food to spoil because of a shortage of workers. Which leads us to the third admonition: (3) Labor for the Lord. Worker troubles is not something new to this generation. Even Jesus had trouble finding workers. We must pray for more workers, but we must get busy ourselves.

I’m Dreaming of the Whiteness of a Plentiful Harvest.

I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

I would like to challenge you today to take a moment and let the Christmas rush turn into the Christmas hush.

Think for just a minute, “What do I want for Christmas?”

I read a sermon from Mark Adams and he replied in song to that same question…

“Well, since you asked, what I really want is …
“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Yuletide carols being sung by a choir and folks dressed up like Eskimos. Everybody knows some turkey…” that’s true … everybody does know some turkey.”

How about you, honey? What do you want for Christmas? “I’ve just one wish on this Christmas Eve. I wish I were with you. I wish I were with you. Merry Christmas, darling.”

What do you want for Christmas, little boy? “All I want for Chrithmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, yeah, my two front teeth. Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth, then I could with you Merry Chrithmiths.”

And you? “I’m dreaming of white Christmas … just like the ones I used to know, where the treetops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow.”

Soldier, what do you want for Christmas? “That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Christmas Eve will find me where the love-light gleams. I’ll be home for Christmas … if only in my dreams.”

How ’bout you dude? What do you want for Christmas? “Man, what I want is … … voices singing ‘let’s be jolly, deck the halls with boughs of holly.’ Rocking around the Christmas tree at the Christmas party hop.”

Mr. Retail-store-owner, what do you want? “Silver and gold, silver and gold. Everyone wishes for silver and gold … don’t they?”

What do you want for Christmas? From teeth to turkey to tinsel, I think it’s clear that songwriters over the decades have captured the desires of our hearts when it comes to Christmas. When it comes right down to it, what most people want out of Christmas is to have a good time, the best time, “the most wonderful time of the year.”

And I couldn’t agree more. Christmas ought to be … “the hap-happiest season of all.”

In my family we had certain traditions that were associated with Christmas. We would read the Christmas story, the one about Mary and Joseph and Jesus, not the one about “The Night Before Christmas.” We were allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve. We would head to my grandparents house for a turkey dinner. When Joanna and I were first married, we would make the trek to Terre Haute, Indiana to her parent’s house. For the first nine years, we saw snow eight of those years. Joanna’s family has a tradition of each year watching Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, a Christmas classic. Interestingly, even though Berlin was born in Russia and lived in New York, he headed south to Florida during his winters, as often as he could. Maybe, his wish was just a pull on our sentimental heart strings. It doesn’t matter to me though. I find myself each Christmas longing for snow. Even now, while writing this I find myself crooning along with Bing Crosby, “may all your Christmases be white.”

“I’m Dreaming of White Christmas,” not just for me, but for you also.

In Isaiah 1:18, God says “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Consider with me what the Bible has to say.

1. I’m Dreaming of the Whiteness of a Pure Heart

The picture is a courtroom scene. God addresses Israel specifically, but this is also addressed to each one of us that find ourselves in a permanent sinful condition. When God uses the word “scarlet,” He is describing a permanent condition, like a permanent stain that cannot be removed. He is saying that He wants to give us the whiteness of a pure heart. He wants to remove the stain and restore us, just as if wool could be restored to its original whiteness.

How can this happen? We have to go back to the very beginning and understand that when Adam and Eve fell into sin they plunged the entire human race into sin. (Rom. 3:10; 3:23) We have a permanent stain of sin. Because of Sin, mankind must be separated from a holy God, the payment for sin is death (Rom. 6:23); mankind is hopeless and in no way can save himself, but Christ came to the world to die for the whole world (John 3:16).

What must I then do to be saved? John 3:16 says For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:36 says He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. The key phrase is “believe on” or “believeth in.” It is easy to see that this is talking about much more than an intellectual assent to a fact, but a complete trust.

Several years ago, my daughter Abby was stuck in a neighbors tree house. She was about eight feet in the air and she didn’t want to come down the rope. I told her to jump to Daddy. She stood there wobbling in the tree house. She looked like she wanted to jump, but she really didn’t want to jump. I said, “Abby, don’t you believe Daddy will catch you.” She replied, “Yes Daddy, I believe you will catch me.” She was still standing in the tree house, looking down in terror. I said, “Abby, Daddy wouldn’t let you get hurt, would he?” “No, Daddy, you wouldn’t let me get hurt.” She still wouldn’t jump. Finally, I said sternly, “Abby, jump!” I think Abby is a picture of where many of us are in our relationship to God. We believe that Jesus is God. We believe He was born in Bethlehem and was laid in a manger. We believed He lived a sinless life and worked many miracles. We believe that He died on the cross for our sins. We even believe that He rose again. But for many of us it is just an intellectual belief. We are like Abby wobbling up in the tree house saying “Yes, I believe,” but we have never actually jumped into Jesus’ arms. That is what it means to “believe upon,” we must take the leap of faith into Jesus arms, placing our complete trust in Him.

This time of the year when the world focuses upon the birth of Christ – let’s remember that Christ is our Savior, that mankind had no hope, other than the little boy that was laid in a manger.

Listen to my sermon from this past Sunday, “Behold, I Bring You the Gospel.”

In the next post I’ll continue the thought of a white Christmas.

Bah! Humbug!

Most of us are familiar with Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. We can recite backward and forward the tale of how the experiences of Ebenezer Scrooge with the three ghosts force him to confront his self-absorbed existence and cause him to realize that the true joy of life is serving others.We read the story of Scrooge’s “rebirth” with a sense of warm contentment that we’re not at all like him. We understand the “spirit of Christmas.” Or do we? While we spend days shopping for that special gift for someone “who has everything,” millions around the world don’t have a clue what Christmas is—they’ve never experienced the hope, love, or generosity that God brought to earth in Christ.

Let’s look at some facts:

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent over $486 billion on holiday shopping during November and December last year. That’s an average of over $1,600 per person!

By comparison, total charitable giving (which included the disaster relief funds for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake and the Gulf Coast hurricanes) for the entire U.S. population during 2005 was $260 billion (just under $900 per person), according to charitynavigator.org.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the generosity we show toward our friends and family—the Christmas season is one of the few times of year when most Americans take time to think of others—but the numbers above give us a stinging perspective.

What would it look like if Christians stopped thinking about giving as a portion of their income and started seeing it as the purpose of their having an income in the first place? What if we, like the widow of Mark 12:42-44, gave not out of our wealth but out of gratitude for the immeasurable gift of life Christ bestowed on us?

It seems that the Western church has an acute case of myopia in this regard. We seem too often focused only on our own problems and programs instead of on the larger mission of Christ. I would submit that one of the surest ways to solve your church’s problems (financial or otherwise) is to stop worrying about them and focus instead on what God has called us all to do—making disciples, both at home and abroad. Giving away our comfort in order that the world may know Christ is perhaps the greatest form of generosity.

When church members in one of the wealthiest nations on earth are giving less than one nickel out of each dollar of their income to the church, and churches, in turn, give less than three per cent of what they receive to missions (according to Empty Tomb—a church research group), something has gone terribly wrong in our thinking.

Gene Edward Veith pointed out, in his October 22, 2005, column in World magazine, that if all the churchgoers in America actually gave ten per cent of their income to their churches, it would produce over $150 billion in additional offerings—substantially more than enough (by official estimates) to provide food, clean water, and a chance to hear the gospel to practically every person in the developing world!

When the church as a whole (there are many exceptions among local bodies) treats the making of disciples as only a thin slice of the ministerial pie rather than as the foundation of the church, are we saying “Bah! Humbug” to the unbelieving world? I would challenge you to take this message to your churches. Challenge them to begin to think biblically about their use of resources. Challenge them to see the great commission as our daily marching order instead of an abstract marketing goal. Challenge them to let this be the first Christmas that they really seek to understand what it means to give like Christ gave.

What better way to wish the world around us a truly “Merry Christmas” than to introduce them to the ultimate Gift-Giver by meeting their needs out of the bounty of His blessing?

By Justin Lonas