Resolution One: I will live for God.
Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.
Jonathan Edwards
Dear Congregation:
We hope you all enjoy ringing out the old year and bringing in the new. A new year is a great time to renew commitments, make good resolutions, and seek to serve Christ more faithfully.
Several announcements concerning worship tomorrow:
1. No Sunday school. Worship service will begin at 10:40. The break from Sunday school has been nice in light of Advent services, but it will also be great to get back to the routine next week.
2. No Fellowship Meal tomorrow. Many members have other family events to attend.
3. We will have a Fellowship Meal next Sunday, January 8.
4. We will also be announcing other January plans tomorrow. These include the resumption of Kids' Quest and a renewed prayer focus for the church.
5. Today's bulletin and announcement will go to print shortly, but let me know of anything we need to include for announcements and prayer requests in future weeks.
A CHALLENGE:
One my birthday, last Wednesday, Dec. 28, (Thanks to all who called or left FB messages.) I bought the Daily Reading Bible, English Standard Version. It is designed for reading through the Bible in a year. Actually, the program in this Bible is reading the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice, and the Book of Psalms twice.
This version of the Bible is on sale at Lifeway Books for six dollars. Other versions of a "through the Bible in one year" are also available. Guides for daily reading can be found in the backs of some study Bibles and on numerous Internet sites. So, you can use the Bible you have for this.
My yearly Bible reading usually involves reading and rereading certain parts of the Bible. This past year I read the New Testament in the King James Version because it was the 400 year anniversary of the publication of the King James Version. I also read portions of the Old Testament.
The Bible does not include a command to read it over the year in a certain method. You can read the Old Testament, or the New Testament, or portions of both. One could, for example, just carefully read the Gospels or the Epistles. But there is a place for reading the whole work from cover to cover.
I encourage you to join me in my plan to read through the whole Bible. I hope to accomplish the goal of the Daily Reading Bible, which as stated above is OT once with NT and Psalms twice. I might fail. I may only get through the NT once and about half of the OT.
Let us see how many of us can publicly commit to trying to read from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 this year.
Let us see how we can encourage one another and keep one another accountable.
You have permission to fail, permission to fall short, permission to fall down and get up again.
See you at church tomorrow. Happy and Christ-centered New Year's Eve.
And another thing, if you stay up to see the New Year arrive, take time to offer up a prayer for not only your family, but our church. 2011 was a trying time. God's hand was heavy upon us, but He never left us.
