BIBLE READING PLAN SUGGESTION 

    From the time a person is born again of the Spirit of God and becomes a Christian, they are encouraged that one of the primary disciplines of the Christian if they want to grow and mature in their relationship with the Living God, is to regularly - preferably daily, read and study the Word of God, the Bible.

There are many verses in the Bible itself that speak to us of the vital importance of Bible reading, study and meditation.

Obviously there are also other disciplines for the Christian life that also are vitally important and necessary for the child of God to grow in the knowledge and grace of God. These include:

- A consistent prayer life

- Being planted in a local Bible-believing, Spirit-filled church home where they can not only sit under anointed teaching and preaching of the Word of God, but also 

- Fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ, as we are commanded in Hebrews 10:3-5

- Bearing witness to the reality of the Spirit of God working in our lives by testifying of God's goodness to us in specific ways. As the apostle John records in Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

- Becoming active in the local church, asking the Holy Spirit to show you your specific motivational gift as recorded in Romans 12:3-8 and then trusting God to enable you to outwork this gifting

- Be prayerful and open to the Spirit of God to use you for His glory and for the edifying of the church and individuals in the church by operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit as outlined in 1Corinthians 12.

The Word of God provides a sure foundation for everything undertaken by individual Christians and the wider church body. 

Although in church life, the Bible does not always give minute details about, for example how worship in church is meant to be conducted, or how church services are to be planned, the Word of God does give very clear instruction on matters such as leadership, the importance of celebrating Communion regularly, and the need for the five-fold ministry gifts to the church as outlined in Ephesians 4:11-13 to equip believers for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son Of God.......It must be said also that most of the ministry, especially in relation to evangelism should be undertaken in the market place, outside the four walls of the church. As Pastor Tak Bhana, Senior Pastor of Church Unlimited in Auckland, New Zealand stated recently on a series of his "Running With Fire" programs on Vision Christian Radio here in Australia - the title of the series being "Seek His Face For Your Workplace," in a sense, wherever our sphere of influence is, whether it be at work, home, your street and neighbourhood, etc., in those specific spheres, the Christian is in a sense the "pastor" to those he or she interacts with, shining the light of God's love by our lives as well as our words. As has often been said, for many people in our nations, we, as Christians may be the only "Bible" peope read - seeing Christlikeness lived out.

Back to the title of this short blog post: "Bible Reading Plan Suggestion," there are many good Bible reading plans available to help the Christian systematically read through the entire 66 books of the Bible in one year, or in other time frames. Some start from Genesis and work through from start to the end of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. Others offer readings daily from the Old and New Testaments. There are also chronological Bible reading plans which seek to take the reader through the Bible in the order that the events took place over time, which in some cases will see the order of reading of the books change from that in which they appear in the Bible compilation. There are also plans that seem to provide daily readings from Old and New Testament books which seem to be randomly chosen.

Over the decades that I have been a Christian, I have sought often to begin the year with a Bible reading plan that would take me through the whole Bible systematically in one year, the readings being allotted to each of the twelve months of the year, day by day.

To be totally honest, although my intentions have been good, I have always found that after a while, I have missed the odd day or more, and then given up the reading plan, thinking it is too hard to catch up.

A couple of weeks ago, at the beginning of this year, I prayed that the Lord would show me a good Bible reading plan I could follow and hopefully stick to. 

The Lord led me to a reading plan devised by The Navigators ministry, a trusted discipling ministry founded in 1933, whose mission has always been: "to know Christ, to make Him known, and help others to do the same."

The Bible reading plan has the months numbered, not named, Month 1 to Month 12. For each month, there are four readings for each day, but only for 25 days of the month. This is so that if the reader misses a day or so, they have time to catch up before the end of the month. Every day's readings consist of two from the New Testament and two from the Old Testament. Longer chapters are broken up into segments as shown in the Bible, so that each day's readings are quite easily doable.

I am looking forward to following this reading plan this year, and I firmly believe that I will be able to exercise the self discipline necessary to consistently progress through the year to finally read the whole Bible cover to cover. 

If you, like me, have found it difficult to stay with Bible reading plans that are designed specifically to be read from January 1 to December 31, then this Navigators plan may be just what you are looking for.

Another suggestion I would make is: If you find it somewhat daunting to read chapters of genealogies and other seemingly mundane details, as important as their inclusion in the Bible is, a suggestion I have is to listen to those chapters on a good audio Bible recording. There are a number of well-voiced audio Bibles in various versions. For me, personally, I cannot go past the wonderfully recorded and produced recordings of the King James Bible by Alexander Scourby - amazingly recorded back in the early 1950's. He has an authoritative voice and he reads with wonderful expression, and sensitivity to the text. I do not know if he was a committed, born again Christian, but to my mind, he certainly read as if he was anointed of the Holy Spirit. He was an actor, yes, but I believe he read with great conviction that what he was reading was worthy of his very best reading input.