Why Read Through the Bible in a Year or More?

December 26, 2009 / revheff / Leave a comment

469px-Robert_Murray_McCheyne-234x300 I say a year or more because I don’t want people to get overwhelmed by the size of the challenge. While I want to encourage believers to stretch to accomplish the task in a year, far better that we do it in a longer period of time than not at all.

It has been my practice to read according to a plan for covering Genesis to Revelation in a year for the last ten years. Few disciplines have more thoroughly shaped my spiritual life. I plead with you – pick up a copy of the Robert Murray McCheyne plan at church this Sunday or access one of the several alternative approaches you can download on line. Or purchase a copy of one of several brands of a through-the–bible-in-a-year bibles available at your bookstore. For the last two years I have used the TNIV of one of those and have enjoyed it thoroughly. This means of grace will change your life!

In case you need convincing about this, I submit to you sixteen biblical reasons for giving yourself to reading through the Bible in a year.

All Scripture is inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16). Inspired means breathed out. It comes from God Himself to us as a gift. We dare not neglect any portion of the sacred text.
That same Scripture in entirety equips us for a life of good works (2 Tim. 3:17).
That same Scripture in entirety leads us to a proper knowledge and experience of the gift of salvation and the eternal life it bestows (Phil. 2:16; 2 Tim. 3:15; Jas. 1:21; 1 Pet. 1:23).
The Word of God is His appointed means for fighting sin, Satan, and temptation in the spiritual warfare that constantly assaults us (Matt. 4:1-1; Eph. 6:17).
Scripture pierces the heart with Holy Spirit conviction to purify thoughts, intentions, and motives of the heart (Heb. 4:12).
Scripture conveys to us the grace of God and helps to build us up in our most holy faith (Acts 20:32; Jude 21).
The Word of God is the means whereby God sanctifies us – sets us apart for His use and purposes (John 17:17; Eph. 5:26). It provides the spiritual nourishment whereby we may grow with respect to our glorious salvation (1 Pet. 2:2).
Scripture keeps us from the peril of spiritual error (Matt. 22:29).
The Bible charts out for us the path to true blessing and happiness (Luke 11:28).
Scripture fosters faith and counters unbelief (John 20:31; Rom. 10:17).
The Word clothes us with a nobility similar to the Bereans who searched the Scriptures daily (Acts 17:11).
God’s Word transforms the mind in such a way to make a powerful antidote for being squeezed into the world’s mold (Rom. 12:2).
Scripture increases patience, comfort, and perseverance in the testing that comes with trials (Rom. 15:4).
The Bible sets apart the everyday gifts of God like food and sex by informing our understanding of the proper use and enjoyment of such things (1 Tim. 4:5).
The Scriptures act as a preserving agent keeping us from the disaster of apostasy and spiritual shipwreck (Heb. 2:1-3).
The Bible yields to us the exceedingly precious promises of God whereby we may become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4).

There are probably more. But you get the point. Oh how many benefits come to us by the discipline of daily reading the Scriptures! If you make any resolution for 2010 I pray it would be this one. Take up and read through the entire Bible this year.

Nothing Matters More in the Battle Against Sin that Enslaves

November 24, 2009 / revheff / Leave a comment

Among the things I give thanks to God for this Thanksgiving week is the grace He has given in delivering me over the years from enslaving sin.

How does that happen? We find a significant key in Peter’s second epistle.

Second Peter addresses a threat to the church of Jesus Christ in Peter’s day in the form of heresy, false teaching. Chapter 2:1 says – there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them. Their error was libertinism. They promoted license. They preached a perverse understanding of freedom and grace that entice by sensual passions of the flesh (2:18). Anything goes was the name of the game for this bunch. Grace covers.

Peter aims in this book to take such foolishness to task and arm the church with weapons of warfare to counteract the attack. He begins this letter with the indicative before ever stressing any imperatives. He talks of what is before what should be. He lays out a grand description of what God has done in saving His people. He bases his prescriptions for godly behavior on an eloquent description of what God has done.

In so doing he tips his hand at what makes for the key idea in the entire book. We see it in 1:2 – Grace and peace be multiplied to you. That’s not an unusual opening to any epistle. We find it often. The writer expresses a profound wish or hope that the letter to unfold in their hearing will prove to channel rivers of grace and oceans of peace to their lives – that such blessing be multiplied, be ever increasing in their lives. Where? Look at the rest of the verse – in (or through) the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Who doesn’t want the favor of God in his life? Who doesn’t want the peace of God in her life? Who doesn’t covet ever increasing doses of grace and peace? Such can be found in only one source – the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Don’t miss the connection in v. 2. You have no true knowledge of God if you do not claim Jesus as Lord. Jesus Christ is God. He is divine. In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9). John 17:3 – And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. There is no true knowledge of the Father apart from an intimate knowledge of the Son.

Grace, peace, life, godliness, all the things that truly matter, the ultimate treasures, come from the knowledge of God in Christ. So we don’t miss it he says it again in v. 3 – His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him (emphasis added). The words know and knowledge appear some sixteen times throughout the three chapters of this little book. Peter is trying to tell us something! It matters what you know. Perhaps it would be better to say it matters Whom you know.

There is nothing that matters more in our battle against sin than a passionately personal, thorough going, ever increasing knowledge of God and His Son the Lord Jesus.

Do you want to win the battle over sin and its grip in your life? Give yourself to the vigorous pursuit of the growth of your knowledge of Him.

Why Pray for Power?

November 11, 2009 / revheff / 2 Comments

Carson We have biblical precedent to pray for God’s power in our lives. For example, Paul prays this way for the Ephesians in 3:16 – that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being.

The question remains why? The answer comes in v. 17 – so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

The key to understanding what Paul means by this purpose lies within the word dwell. D. A. Carson, in his book A Call to Spiritual Reformation, observes:

The verb rendered “to dwell” is a strong one. Paul’s hope is that Christ will truly take up his residence in the hearts of believers, as they trust him (that’s what “through faith” means), so as to make their hearts his home. . . . Make no mistake: when Christ first moves into our lives, he finds us in very bad repair. It takes a great deal of power to change us; and that is why Paul prays for power. He asks that God may so strengthen us by his power in our inner being that Christ may genuinely take up residence within us, transforming us into a house that pervasively reflects his own character (Baker, 1992, pp. 186-87).

Pray for power in your own life and in the lives of others to this end – that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.