Edgewood Challenge #1: Read through the Bible in one year.
For many years, Edgewood has maintained a focus on teaching the Word of God. But you shouldn’t take our word for it! You should read it for yourself and see what God says. And so we are unashamedly calling all of our people to begin reading through the entire Bible over the next year.
Let’s break that down… In order to read through the entire Bible in 365 days, you would need to read on average approximately 4 chapters a day. Which takes the average 8th grader 15 minutes to read. For a mere fifteen minutes a day, you can read through the Bible. You could pull that off during the commercials of your favorite 1 hour TV show!
As many of you know, I am currently in the middle of reading through the entire Bible in 90 days. I am on day 46 and am about 4 days behind. But I was behind almost an entire week, so I’m catching up! When I get completely back on track, I’ll be just over the halfway point. I find that if I can stay focused on reading for 1 hour a day I can stay on track and even get ahead.
Our church has provided 1 year reading plans that split the reading up chronologically – an excellent resource. In addition to that, I want to direct your attention to a great online, Bible reading resource: youversion.com. YouVersion provides several different reading plans so one is bound to fit you. You can also choose to read in almost any translation. I happen to be reading in the New American Standard Bible (NASB) which I would recommend among a few others.
Bottomline: Get in the Bible! Spend some time in God’s Word. Create a regular time of 15 minutes to an hour and get alone with God. This requires you to be intentional about your relationship with God. Nothing worthwhile happens by accident. Including marriage, parenting, school, work,… and our relationship with God!
Imagine the change that we could create if, as a church, we all became faithful to reading God’s word? It would absolutely change the way we live, love, work, and relate to others. Let’s do this church!
Blessings,
John
Click here and check out www.youversion.com for yourself!
This past week at our Saturday night worship service, I preached on 5 things you must do to make this year better than last year. I thought it would be good to share them with everyone following the blog, so here you are: