Reading the Bible in 52 Weeks

So one of my New Year’s resolutions (for 2009) was to read most, if not all, of the Bible. One thing led to another and, 10 months into the year, I still haven’t read as much as I would have liked.

So, recently, I’ve been wanting to revive that resolution and start to seriously reading the Bible. I realized that reading from cover to cover would get (I’m ashamed to say it) boring at times, so I did a Google search for a good reading plan and I found a site that broke it up into weeks.

Each day I will read around 2 chapters (or more depending on the length of the chapter) for that day. The course I will follow is this:

1. Sunday: Epsitles (starting with Romans)
2. Monday: The Law (starting with Genesis)
3. Tuesday: History (starting with Joshua)
4. Wednesday: Psalms
5. Thursday: Poetry (starting with Job)
6. Friday: Prophecy (starting with Isaiah)
7. Saturday: Gospels (starting with Matthew)

The website I found this at is: http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.html

So, check back here as I give updates on how I’m doing and the things I learn.

Confessing our Sins to Others

James 5:16:

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

For me, it’s always happened that I’ll sin and then I’ll pray forgiveness to God in private. Recently, however, a guy from my school (Christian school) opened up and shared his testimony to the whole high school student body. That took guts, in my opinion, because his testimony included attempted suicide and sexual indecencies, moreover just living a non-Christ centered life.

So this got me thinking of all of the sins that I’ve done recently and as I was thinking about this in class, a teacher was talking about the testimony; he brought up James 5:16 (see above in big bold letters). This was one of those moments that it just dawned on me, “Oh, other people in the world sin, too. It’s not just me! In order to get help with the personal sin that I struggle with, I gotta tell someone!” So, that night, as I was praying, I asked for help and strength with what I was struggling from God, then all of the sudden that I just got the biggest immense feeling to go and talk to one of my best friends about it.  Turns out, he was struggling with it, too.

Moral of the story: You are not alone.

Don’t feel like you are the only one that sins. Furthermore, when dealing with the shame that you feel, talk to someone about it. In addition to making things right with God (and someone you might have wronged) get help from someone, whether it’s your youth pastor, your best friend, your parents, your whatever; saying, “I need your help with this.” is sometimes the best way to reconcile.