Coffee, a Bible, and a Napkin to Scribble On
“Somewhere deep down within you, everything that Christ has ever gone through is already deposited in you. Some of that which is His experience He desires that you also experience. He has a yoke to place around your neck. It is an easy yoke; that is a guarantee, for He has already gained the strength to bear that yoke.”
Gene Edwards, The Inward Journey, p. 68
This book goes deep fast, and it taking me on a pretty good path. It is out of print, so I’m including a link to Amazon.
With the new year comes a new chance to get on a Bible reading plan. As a family and at the mission we are doing the Chronological reading plan according to the folks at ESVBible.org. If you have never read the Bible all of the way through, or if you’ve never had the adventure of reading it through in the order that it happened, I suggest you check this out.
ESV Chronological Reading plan at ESVBible.org
ESV Chronological Reading plan as a printable and checkoffable worksheet.
I want to plug reading the Bible at the website: If you buy an ESV study bible they give you a free unlock for all of the study Bible notes online. You can also use the notes section to write your own notes and then every few months dump them to Evernote for archiving. It’s really cool to be reading the Bible and come across a digital note you made 2 years ago (and not be distracted by 1,253 other people’s notes at the same time.)
The other thing is don’t let this reading plan be an opportunity for pride or shame. If you miss a day, press on, don’t give up. If you work 5 days ahead, shut up and praise the Lord. I’m currently in the 5th year of a “through the Bible” reading plan that was only supposed to take one year!
Nothing grows you spiritually like reading the Bible deeply and responding daily.
Yesterday I got to talk to a guy that had spent the summer in jail. At one point in his time there, he got in a fight and spent 12 days in the "jail within the jail." – no windows, a shower every 3 days, and they passed his food to him through a slot in the door. He said it was really miserable but he wouldn’t deny that he deserved it.
In his summer in jail, he read through the Bible three times, in three different translations. He said the NLT was easy to read, but he wanted to aquaint himself with the older language of the KJV, so he read it once through too.
He said he is now closer to God than ever before. He read through the 5 books of Moses, got out of jail and went back to his dad and said, "Why didn’t you ever read this and tell me that God was always with me?! Why didn’t you tell me that God went along with me through every one of my trials in life?!"
Pretty awesome. He is now in his late 30s and is eager to learn more about, and draw closer to Jesus.
“To the degree that you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control. People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they’ll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways. The organization will become a vital, living set of beliefs.”
from http://www.fastcompany.com/27677/dee-hock-organizations quoted by Alan Hirsch in Forgotten Ways.
The cool thing about this is how it points to all of us who are in Christ functioning as we are connected directly to Christ Himself. Not how we are connected to our visionary leader, or our such and such coordinator. Not how we are connected to our pastor, who can fail ethically and morally and shipwreck us all. We are connected to Christ. He joins us, He communicates with us, and He coordinates us.
Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
When we are lead by laws and shoulds, we are depending on command and control. Granted, the unspiritual man LOVES command and control, both to have it and to be lazy in it, but being led by the spirit is joy and peace, because IT IS REAL LIFE.
When my son is in my house, and I make decisions for him such as “It’s time to go to bed. It’s time now to do your homework.” I am controlling things that he is not mature enough to do himself. My goal in his life, however, is to be able to send him over to a friend’s house and let him be led himself to say “We should quit playing video games and get some sleep.”
That is maturity in life. That is how spiritual maturity looks too.
Ephesians 4:14-16
14As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
