2021 Is About Jesus

What are you anticipating in this New Year?

  • The end of lockdowns, mask-wearing, and social distancing?
  • A less rancorous political climate?
  • The birth of a child or grandchild?
  • Marriage?
  • A new job?
  • Professional advancement?
  • Beginning college?
  • Achieving personal goals – for reading, for exercise, for healthy eating?
  • Becoming a better person?
  • Healing relationships?

At the turn of the year, we do well to look forward with eagerness to what is ahead, and to discipline ourselves to work towards and pray for goals and events such as these.

But of even greater importance, we must remind ourselves as the calendar turns of the story in which we play a part.

Philosopher Alasdair Macintyre writes, “I can only answer the question, ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question, ‘Of what story . . . do I find myself a part?’”

In the Bible, God reveals to us the Great Story – the story of His creation of a good world in which He placed the first man and the first woman; the story of their arrogant rebellion against Him, and the consequent corruption of themselves and creation; the story of His great plan, implemented over millennia, to redeem a people for His own possession from among fallen humanity, as He worked through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and the prophets, promising to bless all nations, to establish an eternal, righteous kingdom, and to send a suffering servant to take on Himself the punishment His people deserve; the story of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of that Promised One, the Lord Jesus; the story of the partial fulfillment of  those promises at the cross and in the expansion of the church across ethnicities; the story of what is still to come: the fulfillment of every promise through the return of the Lord Jesus, God the Father summing up all things in Him, His people living for all eternity in the joy of their Master as they see Him face to face.

This is the story in which we play a part. Our goals, our marriages, our careers, our health – as real, important, and valuable as they are – all should aim at fulfilling our role in that one Great Story. Jesus is the center. Jesus is the goal. Jesus is the One carrying all creation towards its designated end. This year of 2021 is all about Jesus.

We must remind ourselves of this story daily – for the world around us proposes dozens of alternate stories: Stories with wealth at the center, or a political leader at the center, or societal reform at the center, or fame and accomplishment at the center, or despair and hopelessness at the center. Apart from constant reminders, we will drift into stories completely contrary to the One True Story.

How do we build such reminders into our lives?

God chose to reveal Himself to us through a Story. We must learn it.

Summaries of the Great Story are helpful. But nothing is more important in this regard than reading the Story itself.

For twenty consecutive years, I have read through all of Scripture annually, following a reading plan that takes me through this Great Story chronologically, while including daily readings from both Testaments. From “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” on January 1 to “Amen! Come Lord Jesus!” on December 31, the Story rings out repeatedly, year after year, decade after decade, shaping my thoughts, reminding me that Jesus is at the center, and that my role – as one worthy of condemnation but by His love and grace part of His Bride – is to display Him, to thank Him, to honor Him, to magnify Him.

Take this journey with me in 2021. Download the reading plan through this link, or pick up a printed copy on Sunday. For this year – as every year – is all about Jesus. Fight the false stories by reminding yourself daily of the True Story. He reigns in 2021 – and He will reign forever and ever. Make sure you are reminded of that truth every day.

 

Read the Bible in Its Entirety in 2019

Should you read the Bible?

Jesus says, “Blessed . . . are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28)

How will reading the Bible bless you?

Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

How then should you read God’s Word?

Those same verses from Paul imply that we should read all of it, since every part of it is profitable.

Surely also you should read it daily; in addition you should read it submissively. In Proverbs 8, personified Wisdom emphasizes these points:

“Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death“ (Proverbs 8:33-36, emphasis added).

But what does this look like on a day to day and year to year basis?

If we are to read the Bible daily, with a goal of reading it in its entirety, we will need a plan. I first followed an annual, comprehensive Bible reading plan in 1984. This plan was purely chronological; I began reading with Genesis 1 on January 1 and finished with Revelation 22 on December 31, but in between the plan guided me through Scripture in the order in which events and prophecies occurred. This was eye-opening to me. Though I had grown up in church and in fact had read all of Scripture previously, I had never before seen the overall flow of God’s plan of redemption. In particular, the writings of prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah became much more meaningful to me as I read them in conjunction with the historical books. In addition, many psalms came to life as I read them in the context of surrounding events.

I followed chronological plans several more times in subsequent years. However, there are significant weaknesses in following such a plan repeatedly for your daily devotional reading. First of all, you read nothing from the New Testament for more than nine months of the year. Second, a strictly chronological plan jumps around in the four Gospels. The reader therefore misses what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John communicate through the way they each order and select from the events of Jesus’ life. Finally, following chronological plans requires a lot of page flipping.

So in December of 2000, I developed the Bible Unity Reading Plan, which yields the benefits of a chronological approach while avoiding these weaknesses.  The Bible Unity Plan has two tracks for each day. The longer track – the left hand column in each day’s reading – is chronological. The second track, in the right column, is a shorter reading from another part of Scripture. This second track includes Mark, Luke, and John – read straight through – and several epistles while the chronological track makes its way through the Old Testament; it then focuses on Psalms and Proverbs while the chronological track takes you through the remaining books of the New Testament. And with only two passages to read most days, there is minimal page-flipping. The Plan also follows a helpful feature of the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan, scheduling only 25 days of reading per month. This allows you to read something else on Sundays (which I like to do), or to catch up easily if you miss an occasional day.

I have used this plan (or a variant of it) every year from 2001 to the present. I enjoy beginning each New Year with Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1-3:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

I also enjoy the 14th reading in November, which pairs the message of Acts 15 – those from other nations need not become Jewish to be saved – with the foundation of that message in Psalm 67: “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!”

Every year I look forward to the final day’s readings, which sum up the entire storyline of the Bible:

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” . . . The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. . . . He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:12-13, 17, 20)

Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds! Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children! Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven (Psalm 148:7-13).

I expect to follow this plan, and to finish each year reading those words, as long as I live. I encourage you to join me in 2019.

[A shorter version of the Bible Unity Plan – which covers all the New Testament and about half the Old – is available here.  This Sunday, copies of both plans will be on the table in the foyer. This article is edited slightly from the original, published in December 2012.]

Reading God’s Word in 2017

Jesus Christ is the hinge of history. All history prior to His birth points toward Him; all history afterwards looks back at His life, and forward to His second coming. The story of this world is the story of the glory of God, as God redeems fallen man and, indeed, all of creation to the praise of His glorious grace.

At this hinge, at the first Christmas, God became man, Immanuel, God with us; Jesus then lived the only perfect life, a life in which He loved God the Father with all His heart, all His soul, all His mind, and all His strength every minute of every day, and always loved His neighbor as Himself; Jesus suffered and died, taking upon Himself all the sins of all of God’s people of all time; God raised Him from the dead, proving that the penalty was sufficient, the price was paid. He will return to overcome all opposition, to exercise perfect justice, to wipe every tear from the eyes of His people, and to establish His eternal Kingdom of righteousness and peace.

This is the storyline of the Bible, the plotline of God’s work in this creation. Do you know it? Do you see and understand how God has worked through the centuries to fulfill His plan to sum up all things in Christ?

One excellent way to gain that understanding and thereby impact your daily life is by following a Bible reading plan that will help you to make these connections.

In 1984 I first read through the entire Bible following a plan that guided me chronologically through the events recorded in Scripture. I saw God’s plan in a new light; I saw the centrality of Christ in a fresh way; I saw how all Scripture held together, from God’s work through the people of Israel, their apostasy, the destruction of the temple, the exile and the return from exile, the coming of Christ, the crucifixion and resurrection, the spread of the church, and Jesus’ second coming. Passages like Leviticus and Ezekiel, which I had struggled to read before, now I saw in a new light; the familiar gospels and epistles took on new meaning as I read the story of God’s glory in sequence.

A chronological plan does have a weakness, however: For almost 10 months, all of one’s devotional reading is in the Old Testament. While this is fine for one year, as a pattern to follow again and again, it is not healthy. Therefore, fifteen years ago I developed the Bible Unity Reading Plan. Like the plan I had followed in 1984, the Bible Unity Reading Plan takes the reader through the entirety of the Bible over the course of a year. The difference is that the Unity Plan organizes about two-thirds of the Scriptures into a chronological track, but assigns a reading from the other Testament every day. This achieves the benefits of seeing God’s storyline, while drawing our attention every day to both Old and New Testament truth. I have followed this plan or a minor variant every year since.

The Shorter Bible Unity Reading Plan similarly has two tracks every day, a chronological track and a reading from the other Testament. The only difference is that the shorter plan covers only a bit more than half of the Old Testament while taking the reader through the entirety of the New. 

As D.A. Carson says, “At their best, Christians have saturated themselves in the Bible. They say with Job, ‘I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread’ (Job 23:12).’” Will you saturate yourself with the Bible in 2017? I encourage you: Commit yourself to following the plotline of the Bible consistently through the coming year. Come to next Christmastime with a deeper understanding of how the birth of Christ is the hinge of history, so that you might be that much more in awe of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, rejoicing in His sovereign mercy and being steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, confident that He will indeed sum up all things in Christ to the glory of His Name and the good of His people.

[We’ll have copies of the Bible Unity Reading Plan and the Shorter Bible Unity Reading Plan on the foyer table at our services this Sunday. You can also download them at the links. In addition, there is an Android app available that takes you through the plan.]

Bible Reading Plans

The Psalmist says, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). One of my prayers for 2009 is that this verse might become more and more true for all of us in Desiring God Community Church.

If we love God’s Word, we will read it; if we are to meditate on it all the day, we must memorize it. Note: reading the Bible is not the goal, but a means to achieve the goal. Memorizing Scripture, likewise, is not the goal, but an intermediate step that enables us to meditate on it.

Even loving God’s law is not the goal. The psalmist loves God’s law because it is God’s; that is, because it is God’s precious and unique revelation to us about Himself, His creation, and ourselves. We love God’s law because we love God; and we love God more when we come to know Him more and more deeply through daily reading of His revelation of Himself.

In 2008, I fell somewhat behind in my daily Bible reading; four daily readings remained the morning of December 31. I read two upon waking, and then, about 9 in the evening, left our evening festivities and read of the excellent wife in Proverbs 31, of God’s delight in those who fear Him and hope in Him (Psalm 147:10-11), and Jesus’ promise to wipe every tear from our eyes when He comes soon (Rev 21:4-8, Rev 22:20).

This morning I began once again the Bible Unity Reading Plan – reading of creation and fall (Gen 1:26-27, Gen 3:1-19) and the Word made flesh to redeem mankind and all creation from that fall (John 1:10-18).  I also rememorized this week’s Fighter Verse – first memorized in 2000 when I was resident in Minneapolis and Bethlehem Baptist began this same set of Fighter verses:

Deuteronomy 7:9:  Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.

So I encourage you to begin the year by joining me in committing yourself to read the entire Bible and to memorize this entire set of Fighter Verses in 2009. Make this commitment in order that you might meditate on His Word day and night, and so know God better and love Him more. May the Word dwell in us richly, so that we rejoice in Him fully, and do all to His glory (Colossians 3:16-17).

Here is the list of Fighter Verses for this year. And below find links to some Bible reading plans that I have used (Justin Taylor has a helpful post pointing to numerous other reading plan options): (more…)