As people who have grown up in western civilization, we have come to value looking back and looking forward at this time of year. Until the last few years, I admit that it was only a spiritual practice that I did occasionally. Since then, I have learned to incorporate this into a more regular pattern. It has transformed how I have come to know myself better and the relationship of love that I have experienced with God.
Russel Moore says, “We must speak with a Christian accent, say the things Jesus said, the way He said them. In short, we must truly love and sincerely love.” I long to be this kind of person, one who is being transformed by Christ into someone who loves well. I have found that the bedrock for this kind of life is best found when I am transformed by immersing in scripture, allowing myself to know and experience God, how He sees me and how He longs to see me live with and for Him.
As a Christ follower, it is natural this time of year to look ahead at how we want to immerse in a scripture reading plan. I encourage you to spend time thinking, praying and looking at the many plans available to help you come up with a plan. Eugene Peterson has a great book about spiritual reading called “Eat This Book”. The title alone is always intriguing! He reminds me why this is important: “In order to read the Scriptures adequately and accurately, it is necessary at the same time to live them. Not to live them as a prerequisite to reading them, and not to live them in consequence of reading them, but to live them as we read them, the living and reading reciprocal, body language and spoken words, the back-and-forthness assimilating the reading to the living, the living to the reading. Reading the Scriptures is not an activity discrete from living the gospel but one integral to it. It means letting another have a say in everything we are saying and doing. It is as easy as that. And as hard.”
Realizing that this can be a hard practice to regularly commit to, I encourage you to join others this next 8 weeks in a Bible immersion plan called Immerse. We will once again be forming groups that want to commit to regular Bible reading and getting together once a week to talk about it in an environment that fosters spiritual growth. We will be using the following plan for reading found at www.immersebible.com, using the “Beginnings” section, the first 5 books of the Old Testament. We have this newer version of scripture available for purchase on Sunday mornings. New groups will be forming starting January 14th.
Consider joining in this type of plan to engage with scripture for this new year. The journey will be transformational as you engage with God and others!