Yes! There is Good News! 11.26.16

There are so many ideas and thoughts written into the Bible that it can be difficult to comprehend them all. In my Bible, there are more than 1,600 pages filled with the words of our Heavenly Father. He caused His servants, by the power of his Holy Spirit, to record onto parchment all that we have in our Bibles. Moses, David, Isaiah, Samuel, Matthew, Paul, John, (etc), were all instruments of God’s desire to give to you, and to me, His instruction.

I have had many people come to me and ask, how they might break up scriptures into 365 separate sections so as to read the Bible in one year. For your information, there are websites that preform this task for you. You can also buy a Bible that is structured so that there are 365 portions for reading. I do recommend that people read the Bible in one year. It is a task that calls for discipline, and structure, within a person’s life. And as I have pointed out in the past, the word “discipline” has the same root form as the word “disciple.” If we are to become disciples of Jesus Christ (and we called to do just that) we must recognize that discipline is part and parcel of our effort. Over the past thirty-something articles that have appeared in the paper under the “Yes, There is Good News,” we have had a fair amount of interesting topics. But the most important topic that could ever be covered would have to do with urging you to pick up your Bible and read it. Jesus Himself tells us that these are the “words of life.”cI have more people come to me and tell me they have never read the Bible, and yet they claim to be Christian! Really? That would be like me saying I have a relationship with my wife, but I never let her talk to me. That would ludicrous. I have a relationship with my Heavenly Father, but I never let Him talk to me? God speaks to us through His word. We can pick up the books written by Moses, David, (etc) and read the words, “the word of the Lord came to me ...” “Thus declares the sovereign Lord,” “ Thus declares the Lord whose name is God Almighty.” In the New Testament we find the authors quoting from the Old Testament, saying, “This is what the Lord says through his prophet ...”

All the authors of the New testament knew exactly what the Old Testament had to say. They were familiar with it. They read it. They desired a deep relationship with God, and experienced the joy of His closeness. The knew the words of life as were written by the prophets of old, and wrote words of life to expound and teach us about the good news of our Savior who has come, and who will come again.

Oh, my friends and brethren - there is so much more!