¡Hola, hola! Please give a big welcome to Week 22 of our Bible Reading Challenge and to those women who are just joining us and to those who, after a long break, decided to join us again. Welcome!

I am sure you have said, at least once this past week, “How fast time flies. January is gone!” And as the clock moves forward and we change the page on the calendar, without any extra effort we all have grown a bit older. We had coffee or tea each morning, ate our regular meals, did every day life, and without much purposing here we are, a month older today. So why I am bringing this up? Because I am afraid that we sometimes think that we can add to our New Year’s Resolution this: Grow in the Lord. But I have some news for you, we can’t. Just like we can’t add a day to our life, just like we can’t purpose to live to x number of years, we can’t purpose to grow in the Lord. The good news is that just as God is the one who determines the number of our days, He is the one who gives the growth in our lives (1 Cor. 3:7)

So, Friends, don’ make growth your aim. God is the one who gives the growth. Strive to know Him more and love Him more. Put all effort to make time to read the Bible and pray. Plan ahead, then open your Bible and read it in faith. The growth will come because He has promised that He will complete the work He has started in us (Phil. 1:6, Psalm 138:8). We plant the seeds of His Word in our hearts as we read it every day, and we keep coming to Him faithfully -even if nothing spectacular seems to be happening. And just like when we look at ourselves in the mirror one morning and wonder how we became who we are now, just like that, after being immersed faithfully in the Word, after going to Church faithfully, after partaking of the sacraments, we will look at ourselves in different circumstances and think, “Wow. What just happened? I am responding to these situations in a more biblical way.” Or, “Wait a minute. it has been weeks since I’ve had any anxiety take control of me.” etc. God gives the growth. God gives the growth. We cannot forget that. So everyday we strive to love Him more and know Him more and by His grace, also obey Him more.

What are we reading this week? We will finish reading Hosea, Psalms 23-25, Proverbs 9-11, Amos, Obadiah, and Zephaniah. Wednesday, February 7 we will have a catch-up day and I suggest you read the book of James or Colossians and Romans 9-10 again.

This week’s readings are wonderful and sobering. We will see God’s relentless love and amazing grace in the book of Hosea, we will read about social justice and the importance of right, biblical worship in Amos. In Obadiah we will see what Proverbs reminds us over and over again: The prideful won’t stand for too long, God will humble those who trust in themselves and act like gods. In Zephaniah we will see God judging the nations and then, in His kindness, bringing the nations to Him.

The Psalms will remind us that God is our shepherd, our King, and our Teacher. These are great Psalms to pray and meditate and relate to what we will be reading in the Minor Prophets and in Proverbs. I know you will be greatly blessed as you consider the Word of the Lord this week.

One more thing, please if you have not done so, go and check out this wonderful resource that Rachel Jankovic and Jemma Merkle put together: the book of Proverbs in 144 voices read by women all over the world for the Bible Reading Challenge. You can find it here:
https://www.nsa.edu/proverbs-144-voices/

I hope to “see” many of you in on Monday during our weekly Webinar at 10:00 PST And if you come, let me know in the live chat!

May our prayer this week be,”Lord, may we press on to know you, deliver us from discouragement and help us persevere knowing that you will surely come as the dawn, as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:3)

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the Christ Church Ladies Fellowship

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¡Hola, hola! Welcome to week 21 of our Bible Reading Challenge! Woohoo! How abundant are His mercies to those who believe, right? Think of these mercies, for example:  The gift of hunger. The gift of thirst. The gift of God Himself drawing us to Himself. The gift of being willing to come. The gift of knowing that we can’t persevere on our own. The gift of undeserved grace.  The gift of being able to read. The gift of the Bible -printed in our own language, in our favorite format (large print, with wide margins, light weight, with notes, without notes, etc.). Yes, all is gift flowing from His Grace. And so with hearts overflowing with gratitude we come and take the book of God and read it. One more verse, one more chapter, one more book, one more day and we drink and drink and we find out that our soul is starting to learn to be satisfied in Him and in Him alone.

“But wait,” some of you may say, ”yes to what you said in that first paragraph, Becky, I get it. It sounds beautiful and great. But …. it is just hard to consistently make the time, to actually make it happen every single day. Finding the time, you know? I guess you just don’t understand because you don’t see me running around every day.” So to you I write now, Friend. Yes, the season in my life might be very different than yours today, but our Father is the same. And our Mediator, Jesus Christ, is the same. He knows our frame and our specific circumstances. He is the God who sees, who hears, but He is also the God who comes and meets us where we are to give us the strength we need to do what He has commanded us to do. We cannot choose the terms of our coming to Him. Have we forgotten that He is God and we are not? He bids us to come to His throne by faith and in Jesus’ name and we must then come in prayer and in His Word to meet Him. Friends, our obedience is never dependent on our circumstances. The devil and our flesh are clever and when you put together those plus feminine hormones and two pinches of self-pity you have the perfect recipe to bake the most understanding excuse for not getting up earlier to meet with your Creator and Redeemer.  So what now? Repent and believe. Repent of your indifference. Repent from thinking that God can be accommodated into your busy schedule some days… and that if it doesn’t happen, “He will surely understand.” Repent from living as if you were God, the sole owner of your days and times.  And believe that in Christ there is forgiveness from all our self-pity, our poor management of time, our complaining. Believe that His Word is powerful and it can indeed change you and bring you joy when you are downcast, that it can bring you strength when you have none, that it will strengthen your hope in the long days of waiting for answered prayers. Believe that He was not yet finished His work in you, but that He will indeed complete it. Believe that His love for you is so immense that nothing can separate you from it. He wants you to come, so why would you not come?

This week we will finish reading 2 Kings and on Tuesday we will have a happy catch-up day (I can see you are already smiling). For those who are current in their reading and want a suggestion, I say read the book of James and Romans 10, I believe it will be a wonderful way to wrap-up the book of Kings and continue reading the book of Proverbs. We will start reading the Minor Prophets on Wednesday and I cannot begin to tell you how much I love these books in the Bible. They have been living water to me many times. I have learned so much from the character of God in these books, so much from my own nature too, and so much about living the Christian life that I pray you will enjoy swimming deep in those waters next week. On Wednesday we will read Joel along with Acts 2 and psalm 138, and you really don’t want to miss it! I will be sharing more about these Minor Prophets and some of the lessons we don’t want to miss on our weekly webinar on Monday, January 29 at 10:00am PST. I hope you can join us.

May our prayer this week, “Lord, I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what you will say to me.” (Heb. 2:1a)

Under His Sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship

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