Dear sisters,
Ready to start the Bible Reading Challenge? I am! What a great opportunity to be doing this together so that we can encourage one another to persevere in the Word.
We are Christian women, we believe in the Word of God, we believe in Jesus—the Word of God made flesh—and yet many times we fail to be women of the Word. We barely open our Bibles and soon we find that our faith fails. But God, in His kindness, leads us to Himself again and again. And again we open the Word and find that the Word of Life is there, ready for us to eat, to savour, to comfort us, and even to admonish us. So, let’s do that. No matter if you have been a faithful reader of the Bible for many years, or if you have neglected it for the longest time, come! Come take the Book and read it, He will never let you go away hungry.
This first week we will start our challenge by reading Psalm 119. Why this particular Psalm? Because here we find one of the greatest goals of our time in the Word: To love the Word. Yes, we say we love Jesus, but do we love His Word? As you read this Psalm meditate on it and ask God to give you more love for His Word, ask him to incline your heart to His commandments, ask Him to bless you with an obedient heart.
We will be also reading Genesis 1-11. But be careful how you read. Slow down. Many of these stories will most likely be very familiar to you (the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, the Tower of Babel), but I want to encourage you to read them as if it were the first time you were reading them. Let the stories become real in your imagination, let them capture you. These are powerful stories indeed!
The Gospel of Matthew is the first book we will be reading from the New Testament. This week, we will be reading chapters 1-7. Again, read these stories as if you had never heard of them. Be amazed at what you are reading… I mean, how can you not? You will be reading about God becoming a baby to dwell among us to save us! You will read about how the Wise Men followed a star to find the Christ. Yes. Think about that. Pretty amazing, right? And the two verses that tell us about Herod killing children trying to kill Jesus of Nazareth. Very sobering to think about this. We’ll then read about John the Baptist and his ministry; we will hear him call: “Repent and believe!” Then, we will encounter Jesus and the Tempter in the wilderness, and right after that Jesus on the Mount delivering a sermon that is life-changing.
Friends, may this be our prayer this week as we open the Word, “Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see wondrous things out of your law.” Psalm 119:18
This next Monday, September 11 at 10:00AM Pacific Time, we will start our Webinars! I am so ready! The Webinar will be hosted at https://www.christkirk.com/biblechallenge/ and the recording will be available at the same page immediately after the live webinar.
Grace upon grace,
Becky Pliego and the Team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship
