“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”

Imagine if the only thing we feared to lose was Jesus. Imagine if everything else we had was held in an open hand and we were willing to let God take it if that is what He decided. If we did that, idols would have no hold on us.

I pray for that day.

Lately I have been thinking about how to increase my intimacy with Jesus Christ. If I want to interact with the world for Jesus, I should know how He thinks about things and be as close to Him as I can be.

Most people, when they talk about getting closer to God, describe their study time and prayer, the traditional “quiet time.” I hope that works for them. It doesn’t for me. I read and then I get up and forget what I have read. Or, worse yet, I don’t read and I feel guilty like I have ignored an appointment with God and left Him in the waiting room. I am not sure when Scripture reading and prayer became duties for me. I just know that I want more intimacy, not more information alone.

I need information for the intimacy to be truthful. That has always concerned me. Jesus Christ brought grace AND truth. I want it all. I just know that in my life, information often becomes an idol and replaces God. While I need to know true things about God, that information is meant to help me know God better, not so that I can get the right answers on the pop quiz later.

Quiet time normally means I take some time reading and then praying for needs in my life and those I love. This lasts between 15 and 45 minutes and then I move on with my day. That doesn’t work for me. I need God to be speaking into my life 24/7 even though I can’t read that often. I need what God describes in Psalm 1 or Joshua 1:8 where God’s word is the meditation of my heart day and night. If I cannot remember what I have read after I close my Bible, I can’t take it with me when I go out and live the life God has planned for me. Something has to stick. That is what I want. I want the kind of meal that sticks with you all day and maybe even the next day. There has to be some way for this to happen. That is my search.

You might not struggle like me. If you are able to sit down and read your Bible, pray the appropriate things afterward and feel close to God, great! I am very happy for you. I have struggled with that and now I realize I need to change.

So I stopped studying Scripture.

Now I want to dwell in it, to savor it. Before I tried to understand everything that was in it so that I could explain it to anyone. Now I want to treasure it and make sure I know how it works in my life. Now what it reveals about God Himself matters more.

Here is my plan. Over the last 8 months, I read through the whole Bible. It was wonderful and gave me such a great overview of God’s plan and story. Now I am going to do two things at the same time.
1. I am going to read through it again, quickly. I am using a plan where I read 10 chapters a day from 10 different places in the Bible. You can check out the plan for yourself. I am very excited about it and have already started.
2. I am going to meditate on one section every day. Right now I am spending time each day in Romans 8:28 and the surrounding verses. The point is not to see how many verses I can meditate on. The plan is to take as long as I need to see that verse explode in my life, changing how I live. I am going to start with meditating on this verse for a week and see if that is enough time. If not, I will take a second week.

What I want to resist is the “reading just to read” mentality. I don’t want the word to go through me like a pipe. I want it to take root in me. I want to live it out, not just read it through. Between the two plans above, I should be able to get a view from a skyscraper and a street level view of certain portions of Scripture—the best of both worlds.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

WHO WE ARE
We are a group of people who recognize that we are all needy.  Our common need stems from the belief that we are sinful and disobedient to God.  This means we don’t deserve anything good from God.  In fact, we deserve only punishment.  However, we believe that God has been so good and loving that He was willing to receive our punishment for us in Jesus’ death.  Because Jesus is God he overpowered death.  Through these beliefs, God changes us for the better, but does not take away our neediness.  We remain a people who are happily needy.

So, what do you think?

Here is the introduction to whet your appetite.

Because I have a congregation that loves me more than I deserve, I am often asked by them: “how can I pray for you?” I’ve tried to put some thought into how I answer that question. So, maybe these ideas will help you pray for your pastor, or tell others how they can pray for you.

Pray -

1. That [your pastor] would know and love the living God, would have a saving interest in Christ, being purchased by His blood, and thus would be bound to the Lord by the indissoluble bond of the Holy Spirit.

2. That [your pastor] would know, embrace and ever more deeply understand the Gospel and be shaped by it in life and ministry.

I just posted my plan for reading Scripture this year on the Discerning Mind site. Check it out here.

If you want to join me, pick up Ephesians and post a comment here saying you want to. Kirk and I have already started but would love company.

Michael

Are you thinking about what you can do differently this next year? I know I am. It almost seems hard wired in me to evaluate my last year and to make plans to do better this next year. That can be both good and bad.

I have to constantly remind myself that according to the gospel, I am accepted even with the failures of this last year. Jesus covers it all! How comforting and yet humbling that is. I can start over knowing that it is not my performance that will get me closer to God. Jesus keeps me close. This makes me want to start over.

Having said that, it is a good time to evaluate and plan. If you are also in that mindset and want to systematically read through the Bible this next year, let me recommend a few plans by pointing to Justin Taylor’s blog Between Two Worlds. He has listed many different plans that might suit you. In fact, I would recommend his blog for regular reading. I check there often.

Another plan I have heard about that seems really helpful is this flexible one from Tim Chester on his blog. Check it out.

In the next few days I will lay out the plan I am going to try this year. Please pray for me to follow through and if you let me know what your plan is for this next year, I will pray for you.

Thanks and have a great New Year’s day! I know I will.

God leads and directs His church. He is the “Senior Pastor”!

Please join me in praying for our little local body. We have a great opportunity to display His greatness because we are so weak. He uses the foolish to confound the wise and that means He can use the likes of us. (1 Corinthians 1:26-31) My plea to you is that we really pray for His mercy and help. We must plead with Him to care for us because we will not survive if He doesn’t. This way we will be boasting in God and not ourselves. That is a good place to be.

The interesting part about this is that this is true of all churches, but we don’t always think about it that way. We all depend on Jesus and that is the way it should be.

Please join me in praying. Maybe even stop by my house and physically pray with me! I might do the same with you. I am so thankful for all of you. God is gracious to give us one another.

Your brother,
Michael

I have not been posting here very often lately, but I am trying to get back on track slowly. I just posted a reflection on some music that is gospel related at my other site. I would encourage you to check it out.

More later. Michael