Donna is a wife, mother, grandmother, writer, and Biblical counselor. She has been blogging through the Bible each year since 2012. She loves God's Word and sharing how freeing and practical it is. She is certified through the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors.
I first wrote this post a couple of years ago near the beginning of the year when many of us make fresh commitments to read more in the Bible, pray more, and in general, have a more effective quiet time. But when I came across it this morning, I thought it was worth republishing since it’s something most of us think about often.
While there is no right way or wrong way to do that, there are some things that can make our time with God more spiritually profitable and enjoyable. I’d like to share twenty-eight of them.
It’s time for our next marriage retreat. We’re so excited about seeing marriages like yours grow and get stronger.
Wherever you are in your marriage, you can take it to the next level with a Bible-based marriage retreat. Couples will get away and work on some of the most common marriage issues like communication, conflict resolution, growth in intimacy, and help understanding why you or your spouse responds as you do at times.
You’ll also enjoy beautiful accommodations and time spent with each other.
No matter what is going on this Resurrection Sunday, nothing can change the fact that “Jesus is Risen” and now sits at the right hand of the Father. And one day … He’s coming again!
And for those of us who belong to Him, life will never be the same!
If you want to know more about what that means, I pray that you will watch the video linked to this post.
Marriage can be one of the greatest human relationships there is. It can offer companionship, friendship, intimacy, and someone to rely on through the ups and downs of life. But sometimes marriage isn’t what you expected. Often marriage will test you in ways you weren’t prepared for.
Communication … it’s a big thing in all human relationships but it’s vitally important in our marriages. There are so many things that we need to communicate about … finances, children, work, schedules, even intimacy … and when we don’t do it well or hardly at all, it can lead to misunderstandings, hard feelings, and outright war.
It’s time for our next marriage retreat. We’re so excited about seeing marriages like yours grow and get stronger.
Wherever you are in your marriage, you can take it to the next level with a Bible-based marriage retreat. Couples will get away and work on some of the most common marriage issues like communication, conflict resolution, growth in intimacy, and help understanding why you or your spouse responds as you do at times.
You’ll also enjoy beautiful accommodations and time spent with each other.
My husband and I will be leading the retreat. Mike is a pastor and biblical counselor and I’m a certified biblical counselor. Besides leading retreats and conferences, we started and ran a biblical counseling center for twelve years and have been counseling couples for twenty-plus years. By God’s grace, we have seen hundreds of marriages change and grow over the years.
Leaving, cleaving, weaving: Often, when a couple is struggling in their marriage, it can be traced back to a failure to obey God in one or more of these areas.
Why a fresh start through the Bible? Why “through” the Bible? Why not just read here and there, perhaps finding a subject that interests you? Or how about a short devotional? As long as you read something every day, isn’t that good enough? Today’s reading from the book of Psalms gives us a very good illustration of why it’s so important to read God’s Word in context.
The psalmist in Psalm 1 talks about a man who is like a tree planted on a riverbank where it gets plenty of water and is always fruitful. The psalmist goes on to say that God prospers whatever this man does.
I don’t know about you, but I want my life to be like that. But despite some who teach that God wants to make every believer prosperous, there are requirements for this prosperity. There are things we must do and other things we are to avoid. We also need to understand what the psalmist meant when he wrote about prosperity. If we don’t, we may find ourselves disillusioned, even angry, with God.
But this is just one example of the importance of understanding God’s Word in context, in its entirety. One of the biggest problems I find among believers is a failure to know God, to know His character, to know how He works through our tests and trials. As a result, far too many lead faithless, defeated lives.
But when we read through all of Scripture, we begin to see the big picture. As we go through the book of Genesis, we’ll look at the creation account and what it tells us about our incredible God. It will launch us on a journey through the history of God’s people and some of the most fascinating stories even recorded. As we go through the Prophets, we’ll see the many examples where their prophecies have already come to pass and our faith will grow. We will, also, come to better understand what was really happening in the book of Job, how much the psalmists were like us, and see the wisdom we can gain from Proverbs. In the New Testament, we’ll walk with Jesus and the Apostles, read Paul’s letters with fresh understanding, and marvel at the glories of eternity future.
So, why read “through” the Bible and not just here and there? So we understand the whole counsel of God and so we know the God of the Bible and not God as we think He should be.
Perhaps the question should be, “Why not read through the Bible in 2022?”
