Dear sisters,
¡Hola, hola! We did it! We finished Leviticus and Hebrews and we gleaned so much from our reading this past week, right? Isn’t it amazing how, when we start reading the whole Bible as one perfect story with one main theme at the centre our view of the whole is much better and we get to understand more? Praise God for the work the Holy Spirit is doing in our minds and hearts and lives.
If you are just joining us (or if you were behind and are now catching up with the rest of us), please, know that we are very grateful to have you in the group. We are praying for you because we know that sometimes we can be easily discouraged when want to prove ourselves that we finally have the willpower to keep up with a bible reading plan, but then fail -again. Friends, remember, this is not about trying harder, no! It is about wearing, about owning the habit of being in the Word. It is because we are weak that we come to the Word. It is because we don’t have a strong will power that we come to Christ and rely on Him. It is because we don’t understand why things happen the way they happen that we come to the Word. It is because we still sin that we come to the Word. So, Friend, be encouraged! Take the Book, and read it today!
This coming week we will start Numbers (1-25), read the 3 short epistles John wrote and start 1 Corinthians (1-4).
In Numbers we will encounter a book with engaging stories, more laws, and some genealogies. It starts, like Leviticus starts, with the Lord speaking in the tent of the meeting and the same central themes that started in Genesis are carried on in this book: 1) God is holy and wants to dwell with His people. 2) God wants to bless His people with the same promises He made to Abraham (many, many descendants, a Promised Land, and that through them all the nations of the world will be blessed) 3) But most importantly, God’s promise of giving Himself to His people, of becoming their God and making them His people continues.
We will keep reading and will keep learning by seeing God’s deeds, hearing His Word and His precepts, more of His perfect character. For example, we will continue to see how the people will insist on having a complaining attitude and will continue to murmur against God and His prophets, but we’ll see how He perseveres in loving them and in extending mercy to them. His grace abounds and that is remarkable! Our God’s goodness is higher than anything we could have possible imagined!
In the epistles of John, we see these same themes. God is holy and we are sinners. But because of Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the cross, because He shed His blood for us, we can find perfect forgiveness for our sins. The theme of cleanness and uncleanness that we find in Exodus and Leviticus is carried here too. We are cleansed with the blood of the Lamb and He can now abide in us and we can abide in Him. No more sacrifices are needed, the gospel message songs clear: Repent and believe. Salvation belongs to the Lord!
Be ready, also, to read a very well know passage in 1 Cor. 3:16, and understand it in a very different way.
So, yes, we still have so many treasures to find in God’s Word. Why wouldn’t we want to come and search diligently for them? So, this week, we will not put God’s Book aside, we will take it with us and open it and read it, and mediate on it, and make it our own. We want to be women of the Word, because only when we are women of the Word can we be truly called women of God.
May our prayer this week be, “Father, thank you for your Word, may we read it and find our joy complete.”
We are grateful to God for the way God has blessed us through this Bible Reading Challenge. He is indeed at work in us, and we praise Him for that!
We would love to invite you to watch the live Webinar this coming Monday at 10:00am PST here.
Under His Sun and by His grace,
Becky Pliego and the Team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship
