It Is Finished...Again!

Today I finished reading the Bible through.  My life goal is to read the Bible through as many times as I am years alive.  Honestly, I just finished number 16.  I am 40.  I have actually gotten behind this last year.

Here are some of the side goals in this life goal.  I write in my bible.  When one is drastically marked with notes and underlines after about five readings, I set in on a shelf and start in a new Bible.  When my kids get married, I will give them one of my copies as a wedding present to keep.  Also, I tray to read through the Bible with the same color of pen in my notes.  Then the next reading I get a new pen color.  I can often see my growth process in the color of pens I have used.

If there is one great way to grow in your knowledge of God, love for God, faith in God, and service to God, that one thing to do is read the Word.  I believe that reading the Word is actually more important than prayer in today's Christian world.  The world is so Biblically illiterate that they don't even know what to pray for.  Many prayers are unanswered because we are praying for something that is completely out of God's will, or even sinful!  God can't answer obviously sinful prayers in the affirmative.  James says that we often ask and do not receive because we ask "amiss" (KJV) or "with wrong motives" (NIV).  On the other hand, 1 John 5:14 and 15 says, that if we ask (pray) according to his will he hears us and we are assured that we have the things that we ask of him.  So, read the Word and find out what God will bless and approve, then pray for it!

Please remember that you will not learn everything about God and the Bible in your first reading of it.  Read it over and over.  Why have I set this life goal?  One, I heard someone quote Billy Grahm years ago when he was asked what he would do differently in his amazingly blessed life?  he answered someting like, "I would read fewer books about the Bible, and more of the Bible."  Then at about the same time I heard a sermon by Owen Carr.  He said, "I am 62 years old, and I have read the Bible from cover to cover 63 times..."  That is when I determined to set my goal.

Be blessed in the Word.