Never in January<\/p>\n
by No'ebl Piper<\/p>\n
Fall 1986<\/p>\n
A year ago I set out to read the whole Bible. That's nothing new; I've begun to read the whole Bible every other year for about 28 years-emphasis on "begun." But with all the best intentions, I was never able to finish my annual program of Scripture-reading-until this year. A few months ago, I closed my Bible with a feeling of immense satisfaction: I had finally read it through, all 66 books, all in a year.<\/p>\n
This time I can truthfully say that I never dragged myself dutifully on to the next chapters. I loved it and it pulled me back day after day. What made this attempt different? I'm certain God's Spirit provided the inspiration, because I was the same stumbling Christian I have always been. But I did decide to take a more creative approach to my "walk through the Word."<\/p>\n
I didn't begin in January. I simply let the Spirit push me into it "any time now." I began in July.<\/p>\n
I started in Hosea and read to the end of the Old Testament. I knew what had become of my efforts before when I had started quite literally, "in the beginning." I also knew there were chunks of the minor prophets I had never laid eyes on. There's something intriguing about unknown territory.<\/p>\n
I didn't try to read books in sequence. After Leviticus, I was ready for some adventure in Acts. I completed one book before I began another, except for the Psalms and Proverbs which I read in scattered chunks whenever I wanted to.<\/p>\n
I felt free to skim repetitive sections (like genealogies and censuses). But I did skim carefully enough to catch any unusual information that might have been stuck in unexpectedly.<\/p>\n
I didn't divide the Bible into 365 equal segments. Sufficient to the day was the amount I could make time for. I have discovered when using daily reading guides that nothing kills my incentive like falling a few days behind and feeling under pressure to "catch up."<\/p>\n
I kept my Bible handy. I often dropped it in my purse if I thought I might have reading time while I was out. At home, the Bible belonged on the kitchen counter-opened to the right place. Many times it called me away from dishwashing and into my easy chair.<\/p>\n
I often took along only the Bible as reading material. This has been true for times as short as a ten-minute wait in the doctor's office and as long as a week's vacation. A bookaholic needs no encouragement to pick up something, anything, to read. And when there's only one book at hand, the choice is clear. And who can resist it?<\/p>\n
All of those helped, but here was the most important difference from other efforts to read through the Bible. This time, I became a hunter, and my blue highlighter was my weapon. The prey was God's attributes. I set out to underline everything the Bible says about God (didn't want to set my sights too narrow!). I made blue stripes through all the names of God, word pictures about him, what he likes and dislikes, how he reacts to faithfulness and to sin. I was on my third pen when I finished.<\/p>\n
This "hunt for God" was irresistible to me. It drew me like a magnet. And once I was inside the pages, it kept my mind moving-no more drowsing and waking up two chapters later.<\/p>\n
My Bible's flyleaves are filled with lists. As I read, I found I didn't want to lose what I was finding out about God. I made lists of God's names (I found over 200 names, phrases and variations that referred to him), Jesus' names (about 140), and the Spirit's names (about 35). There is also a list of pictures used to describe God (shepherd, potter, eagle, farmer, husband, nursing mother . . . ). Another list is of references for passages so beautiful I knew I'd want to find them again.<\/p>\n
I used my "finds" to focus my thoughts on God. From my daily reading, I could choose a name or description of God and think of him in those terms all day. For instance, on a vacation afternoon when my four boys had been out of school one day too long, it helped to know God as a Rock who cannot be shaken. Or when we couldn't see our way clear toward a decision we had to make, we still knew that God is our Light and our Salvation.<\/p>\n
Fall 2003<\/p>\n
This year? I recently picked up an inexpensive paperback Bible and a new pink marking pen. This year I think I'll hunt for God's presence–all the times and circumstances when he promises he will be with us, that he will not leave us.<\/p>\n
Autor: John Piper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Never in January by No'ebl Piper Fall 1986 A year ago I set out to read the whole Bible. That's nothing new; I've begun to read the whole Bible every other year for about 28 years-emphasis on "begun." But with all the best intentions, I was never able to finish my annual program of Scripture-reading-until … Continue reading “02 NEVER IN JANUARY (NOEL PIPER)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}