¡Hola, hola!  Can you believe this? We are on week 34 already! God has clearly prospered our plans and has been incredibly kind to us these past months. We have been learning to wear this new habit daily and it feels comfortable and natural to wear it now.

Today I want us to consider for a moment how the world we live in is one in which, more than ever, the written word abounds. No matter where we turn we find words to read. But the problem that many of us are facing is that we are no longer reading, but skimming through the words in front of us. We have been training our minds for the last several years to read superficially, to read headers and bold print, and words that are always accompanied with images. Words, not ideas. We no longer wrestle with the texts we have in front of us, we no longer want to wrestle with words. But if we are Women of the Word – and if we are Christians, which we are indeed – we must resist this temptation and learn (re-learn?) to read and read well. To read thoroughly and not skim the text, especially when we find ourselves in front of God’s Word open before us. We have mentioned many times that we should not despair if we don’t “get it all” the first (or second, or third) time we read a passage, and that is true. But we shouldn’t be lazy either and deliberately skim through the hard passages or difficult texts we encounter. Friends, God has given us a wonderful mind and has given us His Word and His Spirit so that we may know Him and His will for us. He is a God that wants to be known, and this means that He wants us to understand the Scriptures.

When we come to the harder passages or books of the Scripture, we must come knowing that God has given us extraordinary minds, yes, but also limited. We will never fully understand all the mysteries in the Word of God, but by His Grace, God will increase our understanding as we pray and faithfully open the Scriptures and wrestle with the passages in front of us. As we read and read again and resist the temptation to skim through it, God, in His kindness, will remember our frame and help us understand so that we may know Him more, love Him more, praise Him more, and obey Him more.

George Whitfield once said, “My mind being now more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books and praying over, if possible, every line and Word. This proved food indeed and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light and power from above. I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month–than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men!”^[1]

Let’s ask God this week to teach us to read, to help us pray as we read His Word, and to trust that His Word will never return void.

This week we will read the book of Daniel and start Zechariah. We will also read (and pray) Psalms 74-80, and Jude. We have a catch-up day on Thursday in which I recommend you read 1 and 2 Thessalonians (only 8 chapters all together). Read attentively, read prayerfully, read and do not skim the texts this week.

May our prayer this week be, “help us, O Lord, to build ourselves in our faith and persevere in prayer in the Holy Spirit, keeping ourselves, at all times in your love, and waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Jude 20-21)

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the Ladies Fellowship Team of Christ Church

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¡Hola, hola! Dear Friends, thank you one more time for opening this weekly email to read it. I pray you will find it encouraging.

This week I have been talking to different women who have been sharing with me how being consistently in the Word these past months has been a huge blessing to them, and that is no surprise, of course. But you know what has been a huge blessing to hear? That none of these women has testified that the more they are in the Word, the less problems and trials they have. No, not at all. All of these women- including me!- have not been spared from troubles or travails. But in the midst of them all we have found that the Word of God is indeed an anchor to our soul in the darkest storms, a lamp to our feet when we can’t see the way clearly; it is indeed our bread and wine, and water, our sustenance. It is what keeps us going with much hope and joy. Without the Word of God in our hearts and minds we would be in despair.

So, Friend, I want to encourage you today, if you are not reading along anymore, today you can take the Book of God and read it. Today, when you don’t feel like opening it because you have not read it in a long time, take the Book and God and read it. Come to the Word! Remember as we turn the pages of God’s Book we are preparing our hearts and minds for the next turn of the page in our own life. We take the Book of God and open it in faith, and from His fullness He gives us grace upon grace. Our coming to Him, our drawing to Him in faith is never in vain. Come to Christ! Open the Word and read it!

This week we will start reading Ezekiel (1-30) and will also read Proverbs 27 and 30 and Psalms 60-62 and 30.

Ezekiel is a powerful book, with many images that will demand you use your imagination. Read and imagine, “see” what the author has written. Be captivated by all the imagery, you might lose your breath looking at God’s greatness. As you read think how the spiritual world is real and how God is bigger and more awesome than anything we would ever dare to imagine.  Some have said that Ezekiel is the Revelation of the Old Testament, so be ready to swim in deep waters with the help of the Holy Spirit.

 

In Psalm 60 we will read a psalm that David wrote when the events of 2 Samuel 8 happened. We will read how God treads down over His people’s foes and because He is our Victor we shall do valiantly. Our hope – which was strengthened last week as we read Psalms 55 and 56 – is not built on good intentions, but on the victory that Christ, our Victor has secured for His people.

In Psalm 61, we will hear the cry of one who knows that we cannot go to the Rock on our own, we need the Holy Spirit to lead us, to bring us to Him.

 

We come to Psalm 62 where we find the Psalm we pray when the Lord brings us different seasons of waiting.

And Psalm 30 reminds us that God will also bring seasons of joy, of healing, of restoration, and in those seasons we will have songs to sing and we will not be quiet.

As you read Proverbs 27 and 30 remember that we read Proverbs to find principles that we can apply with all wisdom to our lives and the situations in which God has placed us. You will for sure find great treasures in those verses.

Friends, next week we will not have a Webinar on Monday, April 16. We will resume our Live Webinars on April 23, when we will be talking mainly about Ezekiel and Malachi. Thank you for your understanding!

May our prayer this week be, “For God alone my soul waits in silence… I will not put my trust in man or circumstances, but in God alone who is the Rock of Ages, my God and my refuge.” Amen. (Psalm 62)

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the Team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship

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¡Hola, hola! Welcome to week 31 of our Bible Reading Challenge, Friends! Thank you for following along and for all the encouraging comments we keep receiving from you. It is a wonderful thing to hear week after week how the Lord continues to bless His Word in our lives. Soli Deo Gloria!

Some of you have asked if we are planning to continue doing the challenge after this round, and the answer is a resounding “Yes!” You will be happy to hear that we are currently working on the summer reading plan and we know that you will be thrilled when we release it.

We have been reading several Proverbs and will continue to do so next week. So I want to take a minute to share with you some hints on how to read Proverbs. First keep in mind that in the introduction of the book we read that these are “riddles.” Proverbs is filled with principles, which are not promises. We know that not everything in life happens according to Proverbs (we have read enough stories in our Bibles, and lived enough in this world to know this to be true), but we want to read them in order to become wiser, to train ourselves to discern and to judge situations better. We have proverbs, for example, that tell us to give answers and others that tell us not to give answers at all. And the wise woman, the one who fears the Lord and is in the Word, will learn -through practice- to discern the different seasons and apply these two different proverbs in different situations wisely. So as I said, life doesn’t always happen according to the principles in Proverbs, but we must strive to live according to these principles ourselves.

We must also keep in mind that the only way to truly live wisely in this fallen world is fearing the Lord and depending on the Holy Spirit to make us wise. The Lord Jesus is the wisdom of God, and we know that the Holy Spirit will teach us all things (Jn 14:26). Wisdom cannot be obtained apart from God’s mercy. He is the only One who can make us wise -and that should be enough to keep us humble.

So as we open our Bibles, let’s ask God to make us wise, and as we face our daily routine, let’s be ready to apply the principles we learn in Proverbs by faith. God will have mercy on us and will indeed give us wisdom when we ask for it.

Reading Jeremiah has been great, right? It amazes me how in the middle of the book we find the hinge on which our Christian life revolves: forgiveness of sins. That is the heart of the New Covenant, and of the Gospel. If God doesn’t have mercy on us and lead us, in Hs kindness, to repentance and forgiveness, we are doomed to eternal damnation. But God’s steadfast love is higher than the heavens and His mercies endure forever, so He is always willing and ready to forgive us when we come to Him and repent of our sins. No sin can keep us away from His love but the one that we don’t confess and don’t repent of.

So the heart of the Gospel is that in Christ there is forgiveness of sins, right? Now what about forgiving each other as God in Christ forgave us? Can we forgive those who say they don’t know what they were thinking when they offended us? Can we forgive and never use the sin we forgave against that person? Do we forgive and seek restoration? Remember, the heart of the gospel is forgiveness of sins all the way through.

Sometimes we are like the false prophets in the book of Jeremiah: we proclaim to ourselves, “Peace!” when there is no peace. We try to cover our sins and excuse them when the Hoy Spirit is bringing conviction to our hearts. We despise the Word of the Lord and choose to trust in the externals -in vain. Friends, let’s trust that the Lord will bless our coming to His Word this week and that He will help us see the sins in our lives that we need to repent of. Let the Word of God pierce your heart and soul, let His Word tear down the high places in your life so that He can start rebuilding and restoring you. He is our righteousness!

Friday we have a catch-up day and my suggestion is that you read Colossians and 1 John, since both letters emphasize forgiveness of sins.
On Saturday we will read Lamentations, a collection of five poems by Jeremiah. In this book we can learn how God is holy and righteous and how He always remains true to His character.  It is our aim to see Jesus on the pages of the book as we remember what Isaiah told us in chapter 53: Our Lord Jesus is the Man of sorrows.

The Psalms we will be reading are so incredibly comforting. Read them and pray them, and mediate on them. Let them become yours and give you hope.

May our prayer this week be, “Help me remember your Word, your deeds, your mercy, Oh Lord, and bring them to mind so that I may have hope.” (Lam.3:21)

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship

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¡Hola, hola! Week 30 is here! Woohoo! And how wonderful it is to know that the Lord has helped us to persevere and not lose heart. For all of us working behind this project it is a great joy to hear from you and know that the Lord is doing a mighty thing in your lives and communities as you open the Word and read it. Our God is faithful and His Word is sure!

I have been thinking this week about the – very simple but nonetheless amazing – fact that when  we take the Book of God and read it, we are opening the same book that all of the Redeemed of the Lord have read through the ages all over the world. The same message that sustained them sustains us. The same Truth that has shaken the world before, is the same Truth that is shaking ours today. We are truly united by the same living Word to the family of God through time and space.

All of this thinking gave me the idea to share with you some advice from the Saints from long ago regarding the Scriptures, especially advice on how to read and approach the Scriptures (this explains why our email is longer this week).

John Newton, in one of his letters wrote, “If you sincerely seek the Lord’s direction by prayer, you will of course make use of his appointed means of information, and search the Scriptures. Give me leave to offer you the following advises, while you are reading and comparing spiritual things with spiritual. First, Not to lay too great stress upon a few detached texts, but seek for that sense which is most agreeable to the general strain of the Scripture. The infallible word of God must, doubtless, be consistent with itself: if it does not appear so to us, the obscurity and seeming inconsistency must be charged to the remaining darkness and ignorance of our minds. As many locks, whose wards differ, are opened with equal ease by one master-key; so there is a certain comprehensive view of scriptural truth, which opens hard places, solves objections, and happily reconciles, illustrates, and harmonizes many texts, which to those who have not this master-key, frequently styled the analogy of faith, appear little less than contradictory to each other. When you obtain this key, you will be sure that you have the right sense.”^[1]

Spurgeon delivered a wonderful sermon on how to read the Bible^[2], and I will share his main points here: 1) Read and depend on the Spirit of God: “Look up, reader! The next time the book is in your hands, look up before you open  it—and while your eyes are running down the page, look up and pray that God would shine upon it! And when the chapter is finished and you put the book away, take a minute, again, to look up and ask His blessing. If by reading the Scriptures we were  only always reminded of the Holy Spirit. If we got no other good from the Scripture, itself, except the turning of our souls to think upon that divine and blessed one, that would be, in itself, an inestimable blessing! Do read, then, thoughtfully remembering the great author.”  2) Read and meditate: “I like to turn it over and over again in my mind, for any one text of the Scriptures you will find to be like the kaleidoscope. Turn it one way and you say,“What a fair truth of God is this!” Turn it another way and you see the same truth, but under how different an aspect! Turn it yet once more—and keep doing it all day—and you will be amazed and delighted to find in how many lights the same truth will appear and what wonderful permutations and combinations you can find in it!” 3) Read and apply: “Endeavor in  reading  a page of  the  Scriptures,  always  to  see how much it belongs to you…Ask God not to let your Bible be another man’s Bible, but your own Bible. 4) Read and practice. 5) Read and pray: “A passage in Scripture will often open up when you pray over it…we  should  pray  over every passage in order that we may be enabled to get out of it what God would impart to us. A text is like a treasure chest which is locked—and prayer is the key to open it—and then we get God’s treasure! The text is God’s letter, full of loving words, but prayer must break the seal.” 6) Read and try: “Scripture is not to fit your opinions, but your opinions to conform to the blessed word!” 7) Read and tell out: So you, Christian, who are the noblest work of God, should not be satisfied unless your life is continually spreading around of the truth of God which has been made vital to you and will be new life to others!”

Thomas Watson has some advice on how to read the Bible^[3], but I will mention only two points: 1) He encourages us to “get a fervent love for the Scriptures,” and he continues saying, “Prizing refers to the judgment of a man, but love means also the affections. We should delight to be in the pages of God’s Word; we must learn to delight in its comforts and in its reproofs and corrections.” 2) Watson also chooses to encourage those who struggle to profit from their reading saying, “You can profit from reading the Scriptures even if you do not attain to the level of others. Do not judge yourself according to the standard of others.”

I hope you also find encouragement in these words and that you continue to strive to abide in the Word of God:

This week we will read Jeremiah, 2 Timothy, Proverbs 22 and 23, and Psalms 48, 49, 52. And I am sure you will find this to be a banquet that will satisfy your soul.

May our prayer this week be, “Lord, teach us to pray as we read the Word and mediate on it as we pray and work.”

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and Ladies Fellowship Team from Christ Church

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¡Hola, hola! Happy week 29 of the Bible Reading Challenge! Thank you to all who have shared your testimonies (on the Facebook page, personal messages or emails) of how the Lord has used this challenge to encourage you to persevere in the Word. One of the reasons I love hearing your testimonies is that, as I read your words, I can clearly see that it is really nothing that we are doing that is making the change in your life, it is the Holy Spirit through the Word of God who is doing ALL the encouraging. It is ALL His doing and for that we are immensely grateful.

And let me explain that when I say that we recognize that it is the Holy Spirit through His Word doing a wonderful thing in your life – and in mine – I am saying more than just a good, biblical phrase. I am affirming what Protestant Christians through the ages have believed and defended even with their own lives. So what do we believe about the Scripture, Friends? I want to mention here 5 important things that we believe about the doctrine of the Scriptures^[1]:

1. We believe that its authority comes from God Himself. God the Father is the One who speaks the Word, Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God, and the Holy Spirit empowers His Word and vivifies it in the life of men.

2. We believe in the inerrancy and the infallibility of the Bible, which means that we firmly believe that there are no errors in it and that its teachings are all true, and that it “is completely trustworthy as a guide to salvation and the life of faith and will not fail to accomplish its purpose” (Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms).

3. We believe in the necessity of the Scriptures. We believe that we need the Word of God to show us what sin is, to teach us how can we repent, how can we be saved and how can we live in this world. We need it and God in His kindness gave it to us. He has made Himself known to us not only in the Creation (that would not be enough for us to know the way to be a saved), but through the written Word so that we may know Him.

4. We believe in the clarity of the Scriptures. By this we affirm that anyone who can read or hear the Word of God proclaimed can understand the way to be saved. The only thing that can impede a man from understanding the Gospel message is his own sinful nature, but the Holy Spirit can always open the eyes of those who are blind so that they can understand it and repent and believe and come to a saving faith.

5. We believe that the Word of God is sufficient. In the Scriptures, God has given us all that we need for knowledge of salvation and how to live a life that is pleasing to Him. We don’t need to hear an external – or internal – voice to hear God’s voice. We can always read/hear what God wants to say to us in the Sacred Scriptures.

I hope that by reading these points you will find the desire to want to study more of the precious and important Doctrine of Scripture. We should want to know the Scriptures more, to love them more, to obey them more so that we may know our God better and worship Him better. We want to truly be women of the Word!

We have already finished reading Job and Romans and now this week we will be moving into Ecclesiastes, James, 1 Timothy, Romans 8, Ephesians 2, and Psalms 47, 69, 88, 105, and 130. If you allow me, I would like to suggest a little change on how to read these readings so that you will not have to cut the books so much (which is always the best option):

On Monday read James and Psalm 47, on Tuesday read Ecclesiastes 1-6, on Wednesday Ecclesiastes 7-12, on Thursday 1 Timothy, and Friday remains the same.

On Saturday we have a catch-up day and if you are up for a challenge within the challenge, read (or listen!) to the epistle of Paul to Romans in one sitting (or even maybe two… if you want to stretch it into Sunday).

May our prayer this week be, “Father, we are often afraid to pray, asking you to give us humble hearts, but we know that you give more grace to the humble; so we draw near to you through the Word and prayer, trusting that in our drawing near to you, you will continue to draw near to us -even in the midst of our trials and our humbling.” (James 4:6-10)

Under His Sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship

 

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^[1] Read the Westminster Confession of Faith Question 1 to dig deeper into this question.

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