I promised resources to help you with your reading the scripture devotionally as you develop habits that will help you grow spiritually. So here are a few I mentioned in the sermon, plus a few others that I hope you will find helpful.
If you Google Bible Reading Plans or in Bing you will get pages of them, you can pick any number of good ones that are there. The one I use is from You Version (www.youversion.com) it has several reading plans based on what you are looking for and you can select the version of the Bible you want to read that in. The One Year Bible can come in King James, or New Living Translation for instance.
you can also go to Bible.org, or BibleStudyTools.com, or one of my favorite resources for Bible study material is Biblegateway.com. There is also a great resource now called Glo Bible that can come as an app for your tablet or iPhone as well as a home computer version. It features pictures, maps, videos, and all kinds of charts for learning more about the area or the time of the story in Scripture.
John Wesley was really concerned that we hear what the Bible says to us to help make a real difference on our discipleship. He wanted us to really focus on questions that would allow us to explore and understand the message from God to us and our circumstances. He tells us to pray before we read, that the Holy Spirit would speak to us in the reading and pray afterwards, that we might apply what we have learned. Jesus taught us that in the Upper Room, that the Holy Spirit would be our teacher and help us to remember what Jesus had taught us.
The questions he would suggest to us are these. "What is God saying to you in this passage?" "What in your reading seems especially striking? Comforting? Challenging? or convicting? What implications does this have for how we live? our values? our commitments?, our relationships? or our activities?"
Another way to look at it is to ask, "What does this passage tells us about God? What does this passage tell us about ourselves? What does this passage tell us about our relationship to God and to each other? What sins are we to avoid? What commands are we to obey? As St. Paul wrote to his protege Timothy in 2 Tim 3: 14-17 This passage we are reading has teachings for us, rebuking some activities, correcting some ideas or thoughts, and training for how we can grow spiritually. Asking ourselves these questions in the passage or section we are reading will help us begin to make the connection between the message and our lives.?
Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church and the author of the Purpose Driven Life teaches us about questions we could ask when we read as well. He always comes up with acrostics to help us remember the questions. He uses SPACEPETS in this case.
S - sins to confess
P - promises to claim
A - attitudes to change
C - commands to obey
E - examples to follow
P - prayer to pray
E - error to avoid
T - truth to believe
S - something to praise God for
Any of these ideas will give you something to work on that will help to place the Bible and God's direction into your life, you thoughts, your habits, your attitudes, and will help you to become more Christ like in every aspect. That is the main goal anyway, isn't it?
I know that the Bible can be a daunting and overwhelming challenge at times, and we are trying to make it more accessible to you. Find a One Year Bible in your local bookstore or order it online from AMAZON or others. Find a translation/version that you are comfortable with and understand the words it uses. Decide you are going to take a few minutes each day to spend time with God. As we talked about last week, prayer is a two way conversation. We find it easy to tell God what we want, reading the Bible is God's way of telling us the answers to our questions or telling us what God wants in this relationship.
May God help you find some exciting insights and revelations in your reading journey. And if you have questions don't hesitate to comment here or send me a question by email. (macpastor@gmail.com)
Blessings
Pastor Jeff
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