I finished the Bible!

A few days ago I officially finished reading through the whole Bible in a month and a half! It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done for my heart, mind and soul. I feel changed and impacted at a level I didn’t expect. 

I heard someone recently that said that if you read about 40 chapters of the Bible each day that you’ll get through the New Testament in a week and the whole Bible in a month! I was so excited and instantly up for the challenge. I wanted to give myself grace to get as much as I could in each day, and truly soak it in, not rush it, but pray for an open mind and open heart as I listened. I can get more scripture in each day if I listen on audio to the Bible so that what I’ve been doing. 

Morning, noon and night. 

Meditating on God’s Word. 

When I wake up in the mornings, I start listening in bed while nursing my baby or while she’s sleeping next to me. Throughout the day I’ll turn it on in my earphones or play it out loud for my kids to listen along with me. In the evenings, probably my favorite time to listen lately, I’ll put the babies to bed and when the house is all settled, I’ll turn the Bible on, read along on my iPad, and when everyone is asleep I’ll lay down with a heating pad on my stomach (I love heat!) and listen until I’m falling asleep. 

When I exercise I’ll listen and then end my time on my face in prayer over my children, my home and our future. The more I listen and read, the more I’m also asking the Lord to uproot and remove any idol and sin in my life. I want to live in full surrender to Him. I want to love what He loves and hate what He hates and follow after Him with everything I have. 

This whole experience has changed me deeply. Whenever I listen, I start praying that God would let it seed my heart for a future harvest. I pray the same for my children every time I read them the Bible too. If there are places in scripture that I don’t understand, I stop and pray that the Lord would speak to me and let it settle into my heart and mind and soul. 

I’ve loved the Lord and His Word since childhood and yet, since ingesting God’s Word at a higher level in larger chunks each day, I love Jesus and His Word in greater and deeper depths I didn’t know were possible. 

My heart is so tender to His word and I end up crying just hearing it these days. The more I hear His Word, the more I crave it. The more I hear it, the more I see God as holy and everything else matters so much less. 

I want to do this every month now. I want to soak in and ingest, like daily bread, His Word. Jesus is described as the bread of life and living water so to live spiritually nourished and healthy lives, we need to live off of every word of God, daily and often. In the natural, if we ate a bite of food and a sip of water a day, we would be unhealthy, malnourished, dehydrated and starving and yet we do that too often as Christians with the Bible. We nibble a verse a day or wait to be hand-fed scripture by a pastor on Sundays, all while professing our faith but avoiding our own malnourishment. We need to feast on His Word to have a healthy spiritual life and to have a right view of God, of sin and of living like Jesus. 

When Jesus was in the wilderness and fasting 40 days, satan came to tempt Him, in His weakest moment: 

The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Matthew 4:3-4

I want to live on every Word of God.  Revelation 19 speaks of Jesus as “the Word of God”. Reading the Bible is how we stay connected and stay abiding in Jesus. We soak Him in as we fill our minds with Scripture, meditating on it day and night. 

My oldest daughter just started this challenge of reading the Bible in a month today! She shares all about it on her own blog, https://fablerosemc.blogspot.com/?m=1

Jesus said in John 14:15 

“If you love me, keep my commands.”

It’s so important, as Christians and Christ-followers, that we know what the Bible says so that we can live what the Bible says. We can’t just say we love Jesus. We love Him by our obedience to His Word and we are obedient to His Word by knowing what His Word says. 

Things that I noticed since starting this challenge of taking in God’s Word at a higher amount:

More peace in my heart and mind.

More peace in my home.

Constant conversations about Jesus and God’s Word with my children, husband, family and friends.

More clarity in my life overall.

Greater clarity and vision about my business with specific steps in moving forward. Things I felt stuck in or things I felt unsure how to accomplish forward movement in suddenly became clear. Things I had been praying about for the last few years finally seemed to click in place and with so much peace and unity. 

Greater capacity to accomplish things as a mom, business owner, homeschooler and wife.

Breakthrough in areas of my heart and the hearts of my children in things they are navigating. 

My heart became  so tender to the things of the Lord and His word. 

I have a greater awareness of who God is, His holiness, His power, His love, His character, His kindness, His voice, His hatred of sin and my great need of Him. My own sin was highlighted and brought to the surface and I have a deep desire for repentance, turning from anything unholy and to run closely to Jesus, seeking to become more and more like Him.

There’s so much more I could say on this but truly, my biggest hope in sharing all of this is for you to be encouraged to take in as much of God’s Word as you possibly can every day. It will change your life! 

If you jump in on this challenge, or even if it just stirs in you a desire to read the Bible more often, I’d love to hear your story and how it impacts you too!

 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

Here’s some happy pictures of sweet baby girl in her carrier for the first time! She’s the dreamiest!

Xoxo

Abbi