Starting Monday, Sept. 14th, myself and several others are embarking on a challenge to read the entire Bible in 90 days, front to back. I will give more details in a second, but before anything else, I would like to pray for this.
Lord, we thank you for your word. Lord we submit ourselves to you. I pray Father that you will use these 90 days to humble us, to teach us, to sanctify us, to move us closer in our relationship with you Lord. I pray you will give us intensity and inspiration, so that we come to your word hungrily, desperately seeking after you and turning our hearts to you, Lord. Lord we invite you into our lives as we study your word dilligently. Lord I pray that this challenge will prove fruitful for us and that you will use this time to renew our spirits and to kindle a passion for you like we've never had before. Lord we love you, and we need you. I pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen!
Here is a list of all those participating in this challenge:
Allen1901, Aino, Little Tigress, JasperJackson, Evie1980, Supplanter, Nilla, .Gaga., WileyCoyote, GQ Chris
If you want to get in on this too, just let me know and I'd be happy to add your name! We may not post every single day, but we will all do what we can to keep up with this reading and share with you all what we are learning and what God is doing in our lives through this challenge. We humbly ask for your prayer and encouragement, as we know this is going to be a difficult challenge and it will test us. You guys have all been so supportive so far and for that I am extremely thankful!
For those of us participating in this challenge, here are some questions to think about each day and possibly to answer in posts here (this isn't a set way to do it, just some things to help get us thinking about how best to share this experience).
What did you read today?
What did you learn new from your reading?
What verse stood out to you the most/why did it stand out to you?
What difficulties troubled you today or made it hard for you to get through your reading?
If you guys think of some good questions to add to that, please let me know.
Attached is the recommended reading list. Don't feel bad if you get a little behind or a little ahead. Just do your best to keep up with it day to day!
And with that, let the challenge begin! Thank you all for participating in this and I cannot wait to see how God uses this for us! God bless you all!
__________________ Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
"This is my prayer in the desert. When all that's within me feels dry. This is my prayer in my hunger and need, my God is the God who provides. This is my prayer in the fire. In weakness or trial or pain. There is a faith proved in more worth then gold, so refine me Lord through the flame!" Hillsong United - Desert song
Last edited by kevlite2020; 17th September 2009 at 07:03 PM.
Read the first set of readings. I am not really good at the whole family tree thingy (I have way too many aunts, uncles and cousins of my own to start thinking of other peoples!)
I started of course thinking of Noah. Well I thought a little bit about Cain and how he got to speak God. Imagine turning around to God and saying that the punishment He gave you for killing your brother was too harsh. Well first I was thinking how blest he was to be able to be talking to God but then to be able to criticise God and have God respond in such a way that He was protecting Cain from harm! Whew - did he have something that I would like.
Moving on from that thought I was thinking about Noah. Imagine being Noah for a minute. You are doing your usual thing (I am not sure what it was but I assume it must have been good) and then being told you need to build a boat. Not just any boat but a really, really bg boat. I am glad that it wasn't me because I get confused reading about all the important details like how big, how many animals, what type of wood etc. And thats not including the difficulty of building the big thing! Anyway I was just wondering what would I do if God asked me to build a "boat" ie change my whole life and walk away from what I know. Yes, I have lived in 3 foreign countries (and only 1 spoke the same language as I do) but what if God asked me to change my profession? Do something totally different like live in my home town for a year? Could a really build a "boat" if God asked me to?
And lastly my verse for the read was "Abram believed the Lord. And the Lord accepted Abram's faith, and that faith made him right with God." Genesis 15:6 (NCV). I just loved this. My bible is a devotion as well and I loved how it talked about how this was a time before Christ and before the law. The only thing that made Abram right with God was all that he could give - his faith. Abram, like Noah, followed the call. Noah built a boat and then became a farmer after a call from God. Abram packed his bag and roamed the earth after a call from God. It was their faith, their belief in God that enabled them to not only do what they did but be right with God.
I think I have a lot of thinking and prayer to do.
Blessings to all!
I take up compassion and surrender my excuses. I stand against injustice and commit to live out simple acts of God's love. I refuse to do nothing. This is my resolve. I AM THE LOVE REVOLUTION.
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Jesus, I plead Your blood over my sins and the sins of my nation. God, end abortion and send revival to America. Amen.
Yes, that boat was BIG! I remember a non-Christian trying to tell me that the story of Noah couldn't be true because the boat wasn't big enough, well 450 feet long is pretty darn big! There are a lot of misconceptions non-Christians have out there, so I think it's really important that we know God's word. I pray that we will keep up these readings.
I also really like that we get the first prophecy of Jesus way back with Adam and Eve (Gen 3:15).
__________________ "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ" - Mahatma Ghandi
The first covenent was made with God and all living, which at that time was only 8 people like it says in Peter. The rainbow is a sign of it because it's the eternal sign and it's even around God's throne.
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Awesome, awesome stuff! Today I read Genesis 1-17. Evie, I love your observations. I was amazed too by Abram and his faith when the Lord promised his descents to be numbered like the stars. Abram knew his wife at that point couldn't give birth and that they were too old to bear children, but still he was like okay Lord, I know you can do it. Here's my faith, I trust in you. And I can't even wrap my mind around the situation with Cain and how God treated him and how he treated God.
One of the things I noted with Cain was Gen 4:7, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."
This verse really stood out to me. This is before the law, before Jesus, and here is God's instruction to Cain, do your best and you will find favor with the Lord. Do mediocre, and it opens a big door for sin to walk through and overtake you. I don't know if that is a very smart read of that, but that's what it spoke to me, is that mediocre work leads to things like jealousy and bitterness, which in turn can lead to things like violence. But if I just work hard and stay humble, I will find favor in the Lord and I won't open those doors for sin to pull at me in that direction. And also, it says he should rule over sin, just like Paul says we cannot let sin master us, we have to master it.
I noted 2 times where God refered to Himself as Us, or Our, etc, which I believe is talking about Jesus, as I don't think God would call Himself plural if He was literally alone. The 2 verses were: 1:26, 3:22.
Another thing that amazed me was right in the beginning, how abundantly God was giving to man. Look, here's night and day, a beautiful garden, all the fruits and veggies you could ever desire, oh have dominion over the animals, be fruitful and multiply! I mean it's just blessing after blessing, it just reminded me how overwhelming God can be with His blessings, He truly has more to give then I could ever imagine.
Another thing I noted, God sent all the animals to Adam when looking for a partner for him. I think He did that so that when Adam saw the woman, he would appreciate her more. Imagine seeing all those animals, one after another, saying no that's not my partner, no that's no good, no sorry, and then waking up to Eve and saying YES, THAT'S PERFECT! If Eve was the first one he saw, he probably would have been more like, well that's pretty good...
At the fall, when Eve takes the apple, the snake does the deceiving, but I thought it was an interesting little tidbit that Eve was partially deceived because the fruit physically looked good. It was visually pleasing and looked tasty. It made me think of a lot of other sins that kind of fall in that category, where there is deception involved, but other sins seem so visually pleasing or looks like something that should be good, but ultimately lead to death.
When Eve gives birth, she says she aquired a man from the Lord. I love where her priorities are, she doesn't say she got the son from her and her husband, but that it was a blessing from the Lord.
Gen 6:20 explains how the animals all got to Noah's ark, the Lord sent them there. A lot of atheists argue that there's no way Noah could have rounded up so many animals. He didn't have to, God sent them all his way.
Gen 9:2-3 make me happy as a meat eater. It doesn't say we have to eat meat certainly, but it does say that it has been given to us so that we may eat of them.
Those are the things that stood out most to me today. I really love this book, I learned so much and I felt really moved today. I hope I can keep up posting longer things like this every day! I hope this was interesting for you all, I really had a lot of fun getting into the word today.
__________________ Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
"This is my prayer in the desert. When all that's within me feels dry. This is my prayer in my hunger and need, my God is the God who provides. This is my prayer in the fire. In weakness or trial or pain. There is a faith proved in more worth then gold, so refine me Lord through the flame!" Hillsong United - Desert song
Not at all, this is only the first day! I'd love to have you join us brother! I'll add your name to the list
__________________ Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
"This is my prayer in the desert. When all that's within me feels dry. This is my prayer in my hunger and need, my God is the God who provides. This is my prayer in the fire. In weakness or trial or pain. There is a faith proved in more worth then gold, so refine me Lord through the flame!" Hillsong United - Desert song
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