Completed Reading Plan!

Throughout this past year, I have been reading through the Bible using YouVersion's M'Cheyne One Year Reading Plan. What a wonderful year it's been. By doing this plan, during the course of the year I have read the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice. And this morning I completed the 365th day of reading! This is the first time I've ever done anything this. YouVersion has been a fantastic resource with everything online! With their mobile apps, it makes it that much better. I've got the app on my iPad which allows me online and offline access. The app is also available for my BlackBerry. Now I'm not trying to take anything away from the bound Word of God that I have with me as well. There is however a lot of times I'm in places that I don't have my Bible with me. With this resource in so many places, I pretty much always have access to the Bible; I could keep reading and keep up with my reading plan.

If you've never done anything like this, I would encourage you to do so. There's all kinds of plans out there, so I'm not saying you have to use YouVersion. I've just had a great experience using their resource. They have many reading plans available. You can check them out here if you're interested.

Tomorrow as we start the new year, I will also be starting a new one-year reading plan. I have chosen to do the OWNit365 plan. This plan has a reading from the Old Testament and one from either the Wisdom books or the New Testament (the acronym "OWN") for each day. This plan has readings six days a week and allows for a day off. I'm really looking forward to this one, as my wife and I are going to do it together. It's my prayer that this will be a year where we can grow together in our knowledge of the Word and in our relationships with God. It's also my prayer that you would consider going through a plan and continuing in the Word consistently through 2011.

YouVersion Reading Plans

Today I completed one month of my reading plan through YouVersion. This has been a fantastic tool for viewing scripture online and adding the reading plan option has been a great benefit. I don't know how many times I've tried to go through a reading plan, whether it be the one printed in the back of my Bible, another print resource, Daily Audio Bible, etc., and have never managed to make it very far. But because of YouVersion's use of technology it has made it much easier to read scripture and stay on track with my reading plan. Because of technology I have been able to access my reading plan from my BlackBerry, though it's sad to say that I pretty much always have my phone with me but not my Bible. But reagardless of that, if I don't have the time to get into the Word first thing in the morning at home, I can always access the Bible and my reading plan via my phone. I do have to say it's been a blessing and one time where the technology advances in this generation has been a great thing and many thanks to LifeChurch.tv for putting together YouVersion.

So far in one month I have read all or parts of Genesis, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Matthew, Mark, Acts and Romans. I have experienced the creation of the earth, the fall of humans because of sin, Noah and the ark, Abraham and Sarah finally having Isaac and Abraham following in faith as he prepares to offer Isaac as sacrifice, the birth of Jacob and Esau, Esau selling his birthright, Jacob stealing his father's blessing, the rebuilding of the temple, the rebuilding of the wall around the city of Jerusalem, Esther risks her life to help save her people, Jesus' life, ministry, death and resurrection in the first book of the Gospels, and the miraculous conversion of Saul the persecutor to become Paul the servant of the Gospel.

I look forward to all that God is going to do in my life and I continue to read His Word. My prayer is that I really get into the Word and not just view the reading plan as a check list to say I read the whole Bible this year. So far it has not been a check list and I thank God for that. If this sounds like something you might be interested you can check out the reading plans here or click on the badge on the right side of this blog.