Can you smile at the future?

I was reading Proverbs 31 to prepare for tonight's small group. And one particular phrase that describes the "excellent wife" caught my eye. It's in v.25: "And she smiles at the future." We often fear the future, so that we frown at it. If we smile, it's often wishful thinking - as though we were smiling at a wished-for future, rather than the real future. But the excellent wife smiles at the future. I would like to smile at the future, too. What would that take? Here is the start of my answer: (1) Trust in the Lord (Prov 3:5-6), so that you don't have to fear the future. (2) Fear the Lord (1:7, and many other places in Proverbs), taking His word seriously and obeying it, so that you can be confident that you will not do things that bring unnecessary difficulty into your life. (3) Put your hope in God's eternal plan. Even if the more immediate future may involve challenges and suffering, the eventual and never-ending future will surpass our wildest dreams. (4) Train your children to fear the Lord, and not just to behave in certain ways. Many of our fears of the future are related to the well-being of our children. But if we teach our children to do numbers 1,2, and 3, above, we can look forward to their futures with confidence and optimism.

It's not too late

Yesterday, I mentioned to the folks in our church that, since January is over, it might feel too late to start trying to read through the Bible this year. But how about taking a one-year plan to read through the Bible or through the New Testament and just pretend that January starts today. I'm positive that reading through the Bible or part of it from February 2010 through January 2011 will be just as beneficial as reading through it from January 2010 through December 2010. So it's not too late. Get started today! And if you'd like, you can use our church's Bible reading blog as an encouragement as you go.

A pretty cool thought

As I was thinking and praying today during my sermon preparation, I was trying to figure out why Jesus said what He said in a certain passage. And as I prayed about it, I realized that I was able to ask Jesus why He said what He said. What a joy and a privilege it is to be able to ask the One who said it why He said it and what it means!

Praying with faith

This is an excerpt from my post this morning on the Cross Point Bible Reading Blog, where we are reading through the Bible together this year using the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan.

Acts 12:15-16 Apparently, fervent prayer (verse 5) is not necessarily prayer that is full of faith, since the people who had gathered to pray for Peter had an easier time believing that Peter's angel was outside their door than that Peter himself was there. Fortunately, God does not wait until we are full of faith to answer our prayers. There are times when we pray mostly because we know we should pray, rather than because we really expect God to answer our prayers. But let's start praying with the kind of faith that isn't so surprised when God grants what we have asked for.

Before it gets much later in January...

Before we get any further into January, I want to make one last effort to encourage you to use a Bible reading plan to read through all or part of the Bible this year. I am using the Discipleship Journal Bible reading plan, which has me reading in four parts of the Bible every day (well, 25 days a month). That may sound like a lot – 4-7 chapters a day, depending on the length of the chapters. But I can honestly say that it’s a joy to have several different ideas from God’s word put into my mind each morning.

Now…you may not think that you have time to read that much of the Bible every day. But I am surprised how little time it is taking me. This morning, it took less than half an hour. And because I’m a nerd, I was checking the Greek a few times, and then writing some things about these readings on the church’s new Bible reading blog. So it should take you even less time, even if you are reading thoughtfully (and I hope you are!), rather than just to “get through” it.

If that still sounds like a lot of time to spend reading the Bible, then we should take a look at 1 Timothy 4:6-8 to put things into perspective.

“6 In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following. 7 But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 8 for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."

There are two concepts that we should take note of here. The first is in verse 8. “Bodily discipline” (or training) is somewhat profitable. It helps us a little. But godliness is profitable for all things. Somehow, we find it easy to take care of the health of our bodies. Even if we aren’t as good about diet and exercise as we should be, we don’t completely neglect our bodies. We want to keep them in decent working order. But those efforts aren’t nearly as important – as profitable – as training for godliness. And when we train ourselves for godliness – which includes the discipline (something we make ourselves do) of regular Bible reading – we do something that isn’t just a little bit helpful, but helpful for all things. In fact, it is helpful for both the present life and the life to come!

The second thing we should notice is in verse 6. It’s the word “nourished.” Even if we don’t exercise much, we do make sure that our bodies are nourished – usually three times a day. We actually devote a lot of time to the nourishment of our bodies – not only the preparing and eating of the food, but the work to make money to buy the food too. Well, if physical training isn’t as profitable as training for godliness, do we think that physical nourishment is more profitable than spiritual nourishment? This must be why Paul spoke of being “nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine…” Do we think in terms of being nourished by words? Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sure did.

So as we consider what we think we do and don’t have time for, I want to suggest (and this challenges me too!) that if we are in the habit of being sure that our bodies our nourished by food, then we should be even more sure that our souls are nourished by God’s Word. Feeding your soul is too important to not make time for it. What will it take for you to make sure that your soul is adequately fed?

**By the way, another interesting article might be about how our bodies tell us that they are hungry so we don’t forget to feed them. But our souls don’t do this, so we might forget to feed them. Or do our souls tell us that they are hungry? Perhaps our short tempers, feelings of sadness or anxiety, lustful thoughts, etc. are the hunger pangs of souls that have not been adequately nourished. That’s something for all of us to think about.

A Note on Taking Notes

I want to strongly encourage anyone who regularly reads the Bible (which I also strongly encourage you to do) to keep a notebook and pen or pencil handy as they read. You may not write down anything incredibly profound, or anything that nobody has ever thought of before. But something changes when you read with the intention of writing things down. You pay closer attention to what you are reading. All of us, at one time or another, have been reading and then had to go back and reread it because we were looking at the words without really paying attention. One way that I have been helped to do this less often is to read while intending to write.

You can write down all kinds of things - verses that seem important, observations that you make, questions that come to mind, and things that you learn that you should do. Let's not just read the Bible. Let's read the Bible thoughtfully. Taking notes as you read can help that to happen.

Cross Point Bible Reading Project

Happy New Year! Today, we start our project of reading through the Bible in 2010. Using the Bible reading plan from the Discipleship Journal, this will require reading only about 4 chapters of the Bible each day, which should only take 15-20 minutes - less if you don't read thoughtfully, but we don't want that to happen. So please consider joining us. Each day (25 readings a month, so not every day, Sundays will normally be off), at crosspointbiblereading.blogspot.com, I will post the references to what I read, along with some observations or question. You are invited to comment there or to ask you own questions as you read too.