Reading Through the Bible
Loving God through Daily Devotion · 2023
I have been enjoying ‘Read the Bible in a Year’. It is part of our focus as a Conference on ‘Loving God through daily devotion’ in 2023. Our Discipleship team have made cards, which I have found helpful as – it provides me with something to keep me on track. Maybe it is my personality, or the idea of discipline in keeping on track that helps me keep reading the Bible. I have been blessed in engaging with the familiar stories of Genesis and Exodus, and always find new insights. I have related to Job, with his many questions, and yes even his unhelpful friends. The book of Job felt particulally close to me because it related to what happened in our family between Christmas and New Year. When the Goods brothers were together in Victoria, one of my brothers went through a near death experience which was very confronting for all of us.
The first time I read though the Bible, I was a teenager. I did it because my parents bought me a Living Bible, which was a paraphrased version and I found it so much easier to read. I will never forget the impact it had on me as I struggled with growing up and attending a state high school. Reading scripture has always helped me stay focused on Jesus Christ and centered in the values of God’s word rather than the values of society.
Reading scripture regularly has been a lifelong pursuit of mine, but I do not always follow a plan to read the entire Bible in a year. The advantage of reading the Bible is that it gives you the entire scope of God’s word. When I follow my own Bible reading plan I tend to focus on my favourite books and can easily neglect other parts. I can avoid the sections which I find hard work, and especially those that I find hard to apply to my own life. An important part of reading scripture is that time spent struggling with the hard passages, or seemingly irrelevant passages like Numbers. It is hard work, but even in the hard work there is gold that impacts my life.
You might think it is too late to start now, as by the time you read this article it will be early March. All I can say is, it is never too late. You can either start on the second card, which will be in churches during the month of March or start on the first card and just read at your own pace. I have always found reading scripture a blessing. The important part is not worrying if you miss a day, every now and then I miss a day, but I just get back into it again and enjoy the blessings that God has given me as I read His word. God promises to change my heart and perspective as I read with a open heart, so that I can hear His Spirit talk to me through the written word. What a privilege.
