According to Your Promise

May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. ~ Psalm 119:76


I've heard many pastors say that the Bible is God's blueprint for our lives and His Word holds the answer to every question we will ever ask.  In fact, several authors have tried to simplify things for us by writing books that contain 365 promises from God's Word and Q&A books written by topic, so that you simply need to look up a topic and several scriptures will be listed regarding that topic.  These little books are great and make nice gifts.  But these books, like the Bible, will be worthless if no one ever opens them up.  And if we never read God's Word, we're missing out on so many things He wants to tell us and teach us.


God wants us to know, for example, that we are made in His image; that He chose us when He planned creation; that it is His desire to lavish His love on us; and that He has always been and will always be our Father (Genesis 1:27; Ephesians 1:11-12; 1 John 3:1; Ephesians 3:14-15).  And that's just a small sampling of the things we will miss if we never open up and read His Word.  The Bible, like an elephant is a big thing to try to devour all in one shot.  But the way you eat an elephant is one bite at a time.  The same is true for reading God's Word.  If you've never read much or any of the Bible before, don't try to do it all in one sitting, or even in one month.  Do a little bit at a time.  I encourage you to get on a reading plan.  Christian bookstores have many bibles that have reading plans written into them.  I follow a reading plan from 66 Books (www.66books.wordpress.com).  


One other thing I would encourage you to do is to get a journal; it doesn't have to be fancy, I use a lot of spiral notebooks.  In your journal, record your conversations with God.  Record His answers.  Record the promises He makes to you, personally.  Record the things He teaches you.  In the back of every journal, I've got pages of the things He's taught me and the promises He's made to me.  With each new journal, I copy those things into the last pages, so that I can add to them and carry those things with me.  What promises and teachings will you carry with you?


Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands. ~ Psalm 119:73
~Heather Potts~