Goal for 2024 – Make the #1 Best Seller a Must Read this Year
Long title but I hope to make that my goal this year. We were wanting a new devotional book so, with a Barnes & Noble gift card, we found just the one to help us navigate this new year.
As I type this blog today, I received a message from a friend who advised that I had been hacked — meaning someone was using my profile to duplicate it for no good! Argh!
Once upon a time “hack” was used to describe the sound of someone’s cough. Now we use it to say someone is trying to break into our social media profile. It is also used to describe a good idea.
The proof of God’s Word is in the lives that have been radically changed by reading, studying, hiding its contents in our hearts. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). God’s unchanging word still stands.
So how do we make reading and studying the Bible, God’s forever truth, easier to understand? I’m going to start with giving you a few of my Bible hacks:
* Make the Bible “required” reading — like our teachers required us to read certain books as students. Everyone needs a study Bible. That’s one to write in, underline, make notes by scriptures that gave us an “aha” moment.
* What to read in the Bible? Well, all of it if you are inclined to methodical, daily reading. For several years, I read the One-Year Bible and the Chronological Bible that took me through the Bible, literally, in one year.
* This year I am more random in my readings from Proverbs, Psalm, and the Gospels as well as those found in my daily devotions. I enjoy and hold dear those scriptures that are full of wisdom for us. Psalm 119:11 says: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
One of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to remind us of what God would say now because it is what God has already said. Our cars need high octane, clean fuel to keep us moving down the road. Our lives need to be fueled daily with God’s Words of life.
We should never underestimate the value of knowing how much we need God’s help to live His ways. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, so He gave us His Holy Spirit and His Word.
What a blessing it is to always have access to God’s Word. We are blessed to live in this generation when at any moment we can access God’s Word on our computers or phone for the answers we need. As I blog each day or as I need a scripture promise for me or to give a friend, God’s Word is easily accessible.
I can look up a topic that leads me to a verse I need. I think the Apostle Paul gave us one of the best hacks ever when He wrote 1 Corinthians 13, often called the “love chapter.” The most excellent way to live our Christian lives is to love God like He loves us and to love others with the love God gives through us.
Now, let’s go to God’s Word, the Bible, and find the answers we need from the questions we have about today and tomorrow — for ourselves and for others. Remember “God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and light to our pathway!” (Psalm 119:105)