I had been a Christian for 18 years. I had grown up in a home that showed me how to have a personal Bible study, attended Bible teaching churches, gone to a Christian university and was most of my way through my Masters in Divinity… and I had never read the Bible cover to cover. Yep, I had tried many times and gotten bogged down in Leviticus or in better years in the 2 Chronicles range. I loved Jesus and loved the Bible, but could not figure out how to get through it.
In 2005, I was engaged to Rebecca and had been watching as she used The One Year Bible as her devotional book. I liked that her devotional was not someone’s interpretation of scripture but was scripture itself. She shared with me how it divided the Bible into 15 minute a day sections of OT, NT, Psalms and Proverbs. In a year you would read through the entire bible once and Psalms and Proverbs twice.
I decided to try it. I loved it. I read through the Bible in a year… and have done it every year since.
My second year through it, I had a mentor, Jim Leggett, encourage me to take a nugget each day and journal on it using the SOAP format. S – Scripture (one verse) O – Observation (what does it say) A – Application (how can I live it out) and P – Prayer. This was HUGE. I was now seeing the Word of God direct my life.
A few years ago, I tweaked the above journaling format to my church‘s three questions. Each day I still watch for a verse that jumps out to me. I write the verse down and then I ask: What is God saying to me? How will I obey? Who will I tell?
I cannot overstate the impact it has had on my life. I can now say that I have read through the Bible, cover to cover, ten times. But just saying I have done it is not the benefit. It is watching God direct my life through His Word. It is incredible to look back at my journals and see how my Bible Reading has guided me. Daily, God is speaking into my life and showing me how I can follow Jesus.
Several years ago a friend of mine was touring Israel. He asked his Jewish tour guide if he believed in a historical Jesus. The man answered: “Yes.” He then asked if he believed if Jesus was the Messiah. The man answered: “No.” My friend then followed by asking how he could believe in Jesus but not that Jesus was the Messiah. The tour guide answered with words that I have never forgotten. He said: “If Jesus was a true Rabbi, his followers would live like him. I have never seen a Christian that is living like Jesus.”
We are called to follow Jesus everyday. That is what it means to be disciples. How do you know the way Jesus wants you to live? You know because He tells you through His Word. I want to invite you to follow Jesus everyday by starting a Bible Reading plan.
Last year I tried a new plan, the Chronological Bible. It was good, but the first nine months were more difficult because they were all Old Testament. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Old Testament, but holding all New Testament reading until the end was hard at times.
I invited many yesterday at our church to join us in reading through The One Year Bible in 2017. I’ve been encouraged to see so many jump in already. Some are reading with me on You Version – The Bible App. The One Year Bible is one of You Version’s free reading plans. You can highlight verses and make notes that friends can see. You can pick it up at any time during the day. You can even have the app read you your plan as you drive to work or workout.
Are you trying to live like Jesus? Have you struggled to read through the Bible. I want to challenge you to start a Bible reading plan and begin to ask yourself these three questions everyday: What is God saying to you? How will you obey? Who will you tell?
If you do, it will change your year… your life… and your eternity.
samholm.com 
I have read through the bible a couple of times using a reading plan, but I haven’t used a journal along with it. Thank you for the inspiration. I’m going to start today. Blessings
Glad to hear it Alex. When my friend Jim challenged me to do it, I took a big step towards taking something with me every time I read.
My husband and I have our evening Bible reading together, reading through the Bible in an orderly way. In the past, we would start with Genesis and work our way through to Revelation, so I understand how that can get rough when spending so much time in some of the books of genealogy and the law. This last time, we started a plan from the You Version – The Bible App that goes through four areas of the Bible at a time. That has not worked so well either, because of the flipping back and forth between trains of thought. Once we finish this plan, I think we will try a plan that alternates between one book of the old, a book of the new, and Psalms/Proverbs. Also, although we do read through the Bible this way, we don’t finish in one year, since we usually have our own individual Bible reading in the mornings so we each have time to study more in-depth on specific topics of our own choosing. I love the idea of journaling according to the SOAP format, or asking the three questions every day.
I’m encouraged by your comment. It is clear that you are digging into scripture.
How cool to get to do it with your husband. My wife and I have struggled to find the time to do the actual reading together. However, we have had years when we were reading through the same passages each day and then we had something we could discuss. Really cool to share that together.