In early September I was talking to a friend at church and he shared how he knew he really needed to read God's Word more and that he was going to start at the beginning and read it through. Sound familiar? Probably every Christian has said those words and probably every Christian has failed at least once in completing the task. And chances are, like me, you carried the guilt of this failure.
But you know what God doesn't want that. He wants us to love His Word and to read it every day. Nowhere have I found the command,net "thou shalt read the entire Bible in one year!" God does want us reading the Bible daily and mediating on it. Seriously, can you mediate on 5 chapters of Numbers and get anything out of it?!? I know I can't and my guess is the average person can't either.
So as I thought about my friend I wanted to encourage him to start in the middle. But at our 9/11 prayer service another thought came to mind. Why not encourage people to read one chapter a day? As this idea developed I felt led that the focus should be primarily the New Testament. I am not saying the Old Testament isn't important, but the goal is to develop good habits of reading God's Word. So the first book we'll read will be John. I also thought about Revelation and how that is another book that can be difficult to digest. So at this point I am planning on the entire New Testament less Revelation, the book of Proverbs intermixed throughout the year and selected Psalms to make up 366 chapters. January 1 - December 31 full circle! (360)
