There are many good reading plans available and over the years I have benefited from many of them.  This year I am using a plan that has worked well for me over the past few years.  I have 5 ribbon bookmarks that I use, as I read through 5 different parts of my Bible simultaneously.

• Section 1 is the historical books of the Old Testament Scriptures ( I move through Genesis to the end of Esther)
• Section 2 is the poetical and wisdom books (I move through Job to the end of the Song of Solomon)
• Section 3 is the prophets (I move through Isaiah to the end of Malachi)
• Section 4 is the Gospels and Acts (I move through Matthew to the end of Acts)
• Section 5 is the New Testament epistles (I move through Romans to the end of the Revelation)

I try to read at least one chapter from each of the five sections.  Sometimes I get into a section and I don’t want to quit and so I read further.I may  read several chapters from one section and not even get to the others that day.  Sometimes I read from a few of the sections, and sometimes I don’t read any (hopefully those days will be few and far between!).  However it goes, my ribbon bookmark is there, and I continue as soon as I am able.  Some days I read a lot more than just 5 chapters and some days less, but I just pick up where I left off the next time I read.

I would also encourage you to read prayerfully.  In a relationship, communication is two-way.  When it comes to God, I want to do most of the listening!  He has the wisdom and words of life I need.  But I also respond as I read – sometimes with thanks and praise; sometimes I pour out my soul in repentance and cries for God in dryness; sometimes I am led to intercede for others; and other times I pray for my own heart and that God would open my eyes to behold His glory in the face of Jesus and incline my heart to Him.   This is not themere reading of a book.  This is the Word of the living God.

May God be pleased to cause you to behold Jesus and hear His Word for you this coming year!

The Christmas Story

…without adding anything to your schedule

by Tim Chester

1. Eat with other people

We all eat 3 meals a day. That’s 21 opportunities for church and mission each week without adding anything new to your schedule. And meals are a powerful expression of welcome and community.

2. Work in public places

Hold meetings, prepare talks, read in public spaces like cafes, pubs and parks. It will naturally help you engage with the culture as work or plan. For example, whose questions do you want to address in your Bible studies – those of professional exegetes or those of the culture?

3. Be a regular

Adopt a local café, pub, park and shops so you regularly visit and become known as a local. Imagine if everyone in your gospel community did this!

4. Join in with what’s going on

Churches often start their own thing like a coffee shop or homeless program. Instead, join existing initiatives – you don’t have the burden of running it and you get opportunities with co-workers.

5. Leave the house in the evenings

It’s so easy after a long day on a dark evening to slump in front of the television or surf the internet. Get out! Visit a friend. Take a cake to a neighbor. Attend a local group. Go to the cinema. Hang out in a café. Go for a walk with a friend. It doesn’t matter where as long as you go with gospel intentionality.

6. Serve your neighbors

Weed a neighbor’s garden. Help someone move. Put up a shelf. Volunteer with a local group. It could be one evening a week or one day a month. Try to do it with other members of your gospel community so it becomes a common project. Then people will see your love for one another and it will be easier to talk about Jesus.

7. Share your passion

What do you enjoy? Find a local group that shares your passion. Be missional and have fun at the same time!

8. Hang out with your work colleagues

Spend your lunch break with colleagues. Go for a drink after work. Share the journey to work.

9. Walk

Walking enables you to engage with your neighborhood at street level. You notice things you don’t in a car. You are seen and known in the neighborhood.

10. Prayer walk

Walk around your neighborhood using what you see as fuel for prayer. Pray for people, homes, businesses, community groups and community needs. Ask God to open your eyes to where He is at work and to fill your heart with love for your neighborhood.

Pastor John:

There is a principle here that applies to you and me: God takes small, imperfect things and builds them into a habitation for his glory. O, how we should take courage in our little spheres of influence! And is this not the message of Advent and Christmas?

What more appropriate word could God have said to Mary as Jesus was growing up: Take courage, young mother, you build more than you see. And so it is with every one of us. Nothing you do is a trifle if you do it in the name of God. He will shake heaven and earth to fill your labor with splendor. Take courage, you build more than you see.

Part 1

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HaYTwU3twI

Part 2

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K_M7YQvAw4

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn [i.e.  Gr. 'prototokos' - preeminent one] among many brothers.”  Rom. 8:29

“my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!”  Gal. 4:19

I can easily think in terms of being like Christ generally, but being like him is not simply a general concept but it is that we might be like him specifically.  For example, examine 1 Peter 2:18-24.
[18] Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. [19] For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. [20] For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. [21] For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. [22] He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. [23] When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. [24] He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
(1 Peter 2:18-24 ESV)

Here we are shown Christ’s submission to the glory of his Father.  How do we suffer well?  How do we respond when we are mistreated?  Look at Christ who suffered wrongfully but endured it patiently, committing himself to his heavenly Father who judges righteously.  Let us be like him and suffer with patient endurance.

[4:1] Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, [2] so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

(1 Peter 4:1-2 ESV)

In passages like Hebrews 12:1-2, we are not just told to run the race with endurance, but to run enduring by looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, and in the midst of suffering, “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” (Hebrews 12:3 ESV)

We are to be like Christ in humility (Phil. 2:3-8; John 13:14-17)

We are to be like Christ in our love (John 13:34; Eph. 5:2; 1 John 3:16).

We are to be like Christ in service (Rom. 15:2-3; Mark 10:44-45)

We are to be like Christ in our family life … wives look to Christ who submitted himself to the Father’s will; husbands look to Christ who loved the church and gave himself for her; parents look to Christ to see how Christ trained his “little children” – all 12 of them;  children look to Christ who as a Son was always about his Father’s business and always did that which pleased his Father; single people look to Christ who lived his life as a single man wholly devoted to the Father’s glory and purpose.

We are to be like Christ in our giving (2 Cor. 8:9)

In my next post I would like to look at “how?”  How can we become more like Jesus in particular?

I think we ought to encourage every member of our churches to sing every song in the service with gusto, even if they don’t particularly resonate with the song.  Every Christian has a certain set of hymns and songs that deeply resonate with them–the melody, the words, an experience they had when they first heard it–and our natural tendency is to give those favorites everything we’ve got . . . but then sort of check out when the next song is one we don’t particularly like.  But here’s the thing:  When you sing in a congregation, you’re not just singing for yourself; you’re singing for every other member of the congregation, for their edification and building up in Christ, too.  In I Corinthians 14:26, Paul tells us that when we come together, everything we do–including our singing–is done for each other.  Singing hymns is not just an opportunity for each of us, as individuals, to worship God in our own way.  It’s an opportunity for the church, as a whole, to worship God together.  That means that even if you don’t like a particular song, it’s likely that someone else in the congregation resonates with it deeply–they feel about it the same way you feel about your favorites–and so you have a responsibility to love that person by singing that song with all the heart you can muster.  In other words, don’t check out on songs that aren’t your favorites; sing them!  And sing them loud and heartily, not because you particularly like them, but because you may be helping to edify another brother or sister whose heart is engaged deeply with those songs.  Worship isn’t finally an individual experience; it’s corporate.  And everything we do–everything, Paul tells us, including our singing–should be done for the building up of the saints.

- Greg Gilbert

For all you parents out there, this book sounds like it is a http://www.crossway.org/books/give-them-grace-tpb/ read.  I have read some clips and the reviews highly recommend this book.  Elyse Fitzpatrick is a great gospel-centred author.   Follow this link to read more… Give Them Grace.