Two year Bible reading program.

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world.  Wisdom to chew on Proverbs 15:3 Understanding to grow in How do you prioritise? Here Paul reveals how he does. He prioitises according to the calling God has given him. He is an apostle so he has given time to writing so that the Roman Christians might, through the gospel, be acceptable to God. And it is Paul's gospel concern that has governed everything for him. It is why he has travelled the world preaching and so been kept from coming to Rome. It is why he wants to come, not just to encourage the believers, but find help for his trip to preach in Spain. It is why he is collecting money for the Jerusalem church - to display the unity the gospel has brought between Jews and Gentiles. And something of that unity is displ...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world.  Wisdom to chew on Proverbs 15:2 Understanding to grow in God has saved us not just for heaven, but for holiness. The whole letter has been leading to this point. Paul's concern is to preach in such a way that causes people to be an acceptable offering to God (15v16). And so in view of the undeserved mercy we have received, we are to live lives of Christian service, love, civic duty, and accommodation to other's scruples in the church. As you read note and pray over the exhortations that most challenge you. Romans 12:1-15:13 Finish this reading by pausing to ask yourself: 1) What’s the main thing it teaches me about God or his purposes in Christ? Then  praise  him for this. 2) What’s the main thin...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world.  Wisdom to chew on Proverbs 15:1 Understanding to grow in These are some of the hardest ideas the Lord puts before us. But they matter. Paul was anticipating the question: "Why if its so true aren't more Jews saved?" We might wonder why more of any nation aren't. And the answer is that for his own reasons God has decided it will be as it is. He shows mercy to whom he chooses, and hardens who he wants to harden (9v18). The point is that the lack of response in our own day doesn't suggest God's purposes have somehow failed. Indeed, the fact that he is ultimately in charge of who does respond gives hope, as it means that none are beyond his grace and so we can pray for him to open their eyes. And we mus...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world.  Wisdom to chew on Proverbs 14:35 Understanding to grow in If you've broken your leg and want to cross the room, setting out and focusing on the far wall won't help. It will just highlight your injury. Instead your need is for a companion to lean on. This is Paul's point today. Focusing on the system of Old Testament laws won't make the Christian godly. They will just show how unable to live by God's standards we are because of sin. Rather, we need to lean on the Spirit, thinking on his desires at work within us, and then acting on them. And what reassurance for those who do. They prove they are children of God and so will one day be raised to rule over a renewed creation with all God's people, giving ...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world.  Wisdom to chew on Proverbs 14:34 Understanding to grow in A non-Christian asked me once: "If God forgives all your sin, why seek to be godly?" Paul's answers: "Because of who we now are." He begins contrasting Adam and Christ. Adam represented all humanity so that his sin was counted as theirs. That's why we all die. We share in Adam's punishment not just in physical death, but the moral death of being unable to live for God. We're responsible for the degree to which we sin, but Adam is the reason for sin itself. However, the good news is this: Christ represents all who trust him. He takes their punishment, satisfying God's justice so that his righteousness can be counted as theirs. Th...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world.  Wisdom to chew on Proverbs 14:33 Understanding to grow in So why is the gospel the most important and most precious thing? Because of what results from it. We've seen people could never attain God's righteous standard by obeying the law. Instead, the law displayed his righteous standard by provoking his justice at sin. But what today's passage teaches, is that in the gospel that righteous commitment to justice is now seen in Jesus having to satisfy it in his death. And by removing the need for punishment on the believer, this makes it possible for God to declare them to have fully met his righteous standard even though they haven't. This is justification. It is the heart of the gospel in which God's right...

BEGIN WITH PRAYER "Lord open my eyes and my heart." Read slowly so that you take in. And as you do, turn your heart to God, thanking him for the good you discover and praying his will home for you, your family, your church and the world.  Wisdom to chew on Proverbs 14:32 Understanding to grow in What is the most important thing in life for you? Surely it must be the gospel. Today we begin Romans, a letter from the apostle Paul to the church in Rome, written around 56-57AD. We immediately see that the gospel is his concern, as he has been especially commission to preach it to Gentiles (non-Jews) so they would not just believe, but obey in response (1v5). We learn it is all about Jesus as God's promised Messiah who rose from the dead proving he is the Son of God (1v1-6). But it is also about "the righteousness of God" - that's God's own standard of doing right displayed both in his justice and his perfection. And the wonder is that this is...