Christ Church

Bible Challenge #26

Becky Pliego on

¡Hola, hola! Friends, welcome to week 25 of our Bible Reading Challenge! Welcome to another week of expectation as we open our Bibles to nourish our souls and trust that the Holy Spirit will open our eyes and hearts to know God more, to love Him more, to worship Him more.

I am aware, as I am writing this email, that many of us are going through severe trials. And all trials, we know, are meant to make us grow, to refine us, to increase our faith, to help us know God more and to love Him more. Yes, and amen. But the road that takes us through trials is sometimes pretty long and, honestly, very exhausting. How can we walk through it?  Where can we find the strength to persevere? Where can we find power to do the next thing we ought to do cheerfully?

Friends, the only place where we can find this strength, this sustaining power, is in the Word of God. God gave us His Word and His Holy Spirit to fight and win. In Christ we have all that we need to persevere and come out the other side of the trial with much rejoicing.

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Bible Challenge #25

Becky Pliego on

¡Hola, Hola! Friends, can we even start to count the many blessing the Lord has bestowed on us as we have come together to read His Word these past months? So many blessings, right?  And do you want to know what makes me even more grateful? That the secret of the success of this project lies not on the Bible Plan itself, nor the webinars, neither on the Facebook community, but in God who gives the increase. We absolutely love what the Lord has put in our hearts to do and we do it with much joy and put great effort into it to make sure it blesses you. But the truth is that you don’t need *this* plan to grow in your relationship with God. You need Christ. And this is -and always will be- the heart of the matter. However, we believe in a Sovereign God who governs all our lives through the Hand of His Providence, so we believe that He has planned for you and I to be doing this thing together, this year. And that, Friends, makes me -literally- sing for joy. Our God is good indeed!

We did a survey about the BRC and about 350 of you took the time to answer it. Thank you. And you know the one thing, generally speaking, that you all like most about this plan? The fact that you can “jump back in” anytime without feeling guilty! Well, praise God for that and praise God for each one of you who have jumped back in many times instead of quitting. We bless the Lord who leads us in His Kindness towards Him and never uses an “I-will-make-you-feel-guilty” approach. The Holy Spirit doesn’t accuse us, but in His kindness leads us to repentance when we fail to come to the Father in prayer and in the Word, and then ignites in us the desire and the hunger to keep coming!

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Bible Challenge #24

Becky Pliego on

¡Hola, hola! Time to re-group, Friends, and time to remember why we are doing this challenge.  Remember where we started? Yes, Psalm 119. We read of the Psalmist’s love for God’s Word. Of the way his heart, and soul, and flesh longed for it.  We read how the Psalmist, through being in the Word, came to understand the fear of the Lord and clung to His testimonies. We saw Him praying, struggling, asking God to incline his heart to His testimonies and not to selfish gain. He wanted to know God more, to understand the Word of the Lord more, to obey Him more. And that is why we are here. Because we want that in our own lives. We are not reading to check boxes, we are reading because we know that if we don’t feed our souls and minds with the Word of God we will starve. And this is not hyperbole, this is true. So, as you see, we need this reminder, we must not forget that this challenge is not about us feeling good for keeping up with our readings; the goal of the challenge is to be able to come before God with a humble heart, putting aside all our cares and perfectionism to pray every day: Lord, I need you, feed me with your Word. May my life be a testimony of how much I love your Word.

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Bible Challenge #23

Becky Pliego on

¡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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Bible Reading Challenge Survey

Christ Church on

Tell us how it’s going! We’d love to get your feedback.

The Bible Reading Challenge has been phenomenal success. We have been totally surprised by how enthusiastic the involvement has been, and by how many women from around the world have participated. We want to keep it going next year. So, if you don’t mind taking this short survey to help us do an even better job, that’d be very helpful!

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