Resting at the River’s Edge – 2010
Posted by Sandy in Reading the Bible, Reading through the Bible in a Year, tags: Genesis, John, Reading the Bible, Reading through the Bible, Resting at the River's Edge
A New Year, A New Plan – Let’s keep reading!
In 2009, our Resting at the River’s Edge reading plans took us through the entire Bible in a year. That’s a great thing to do. I love the impact Scripture can have by reading large portions – we get the “big picture” that is easily missed when we only read short passages. Sometimes what happens, though, is that we fly through what we’re reading without taking time to appreciate individual passages or Scriptures and letting them speak to our hears and spirits.
Our reading plans for 2010 and 2011 will give you more time for just that. They will take us through the New Testament each year, and spread the Old Testament out over the two years. We’ll repeat a couple of foundational OT books both years, but the entire plan will have us reading only three chapters a day, five days a week.
Why is it we only plan readings for five days a week? It’s not that I’m trying to encourage you to take the weekend off. Rather, it’s that I recognize that life rarely goes as planned. Planning three chapters each day for only five days each week provides a relief valve for those days when we read less than we’d hoped we might.
Some people have expressed that they don’t like reading from multiple books at a time. In this plan we’ll only be reading from two books at a time – typically an Old Testament and a New Testament book. We’re not legalistic here! Feel the freedom to read the entire OT book and then the entire NT book (or vice versa, of course) instead of reading from both each day.
So, we begin 2010 with the Book of Beginnings – Genesis, and are pairing it with the Gospel of John. Both look at the the creation of the world. Isn’t it amazing that we serve a God who existed before the world was created? In all honesty, that goes beyond what I can comprehend. What came before the beginning? Eternity past, and God was there all the time – just as He’ll be there in eternity future, after this world is long, long gone.
I hope you’ll be there too. You’ll learn as you read through Genesis that God’s plan has always been to provide a way for you to spend eternity with Him. In John, you’ll learn that Jesus is that way.
16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17
Enjoy your January reading! The recommended reading schedule is below.
Take some time to meditate over verses that jump out at you as you read this month.
To download a PDF of January’s recommended reading plan, click here.
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