The One Year Through the Bible Devotional: 365 Devotions That Guide You Through God's Word Within a Year

Although I've only been using this book for 14 days, which got me right through Genesis already, I already find it very helpful. I've tried reading through the Bible before but sometimes felt myself just reading to get my chapters done and not really absorbing the text. This book gives me suggestions, before I read the chapters, of what to look for in the text, making it a bit more interactive, and then asks reflective questions at the end to help me keep what I read in my mind a bit longer and also to find a personal application. I'm curious to see how it will deal with Numbers and Chronicles but so far I really like it!

If you struggle to find a devotional guide that both gets you into the Scriptures everyday and yet isn't so overwhelming in its daily assigned readings that you begin defeated by the impossibility of it your goal before you even begin reading . . . then this devotional guide is for you. While this book is helpful in even guiding your meditations as you read the Word to let the Holy Spirit apply His truth to your heart, DO NOT EXPECT TO GROW IN YOUR LOVE FOR JESUS, HIS WORD, OR HIS PEOPLE without being willing to put in a lot of work. Easy-believism is not a Biblical teaching! You do not come to Christ to have all of your problems suddenly disappear, but you come to realize in daily life how to deal with your struggles through Jesus' presence with you each step of the way. Thus, we are called to imitate the faith of leaders who have gone before us (Hebrews 13:7 tells us to "consider the outcome of their faith and imitate their lives") like George Muller who would often wake up hours early to pray and study the Bible. In doing such, we must never look for or expect our becoming like Jesus to be easy. Romans 1:30-32 tells us there is a resting and a wrestling to our daily faith: we rest in the finished work of Jesus that makes us accepted before God but this necessarily leads to our continual wrestling with our natural lazy sinfulness which has not fully been experientially put to death within us! Just as Jesus has gone through the path of suffering to glory (Romans 5:12-21) so we also must travel the same road. But the promise of our reaching that state of bodily and spiritual glorification is guaranteed by Jesus' already received it Himself! As He was raised to life eternal so all who have been united to Him by faith will one day follow. Even now, the Holy Spirit is the Christian's guarantee of these wonderful hopes to come! But now, take up the Holy Scriptures and WORK to read daily in order to see Jesus and become like Him. He is both the means and the prize of the goal. Possess Him by faith and you will have all you ever need in this life.