wednesday wisdom - philippians
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. // phil. 3.14 (WEB)
i've just finished reading philippians in my bible reading. this particular verse jumped out to me because i've begun exercising again. in reading through it this time i was impressed with how "intense" paul seems. he says things like; "suffering loss", "to die is gain", "press[ing] on", "that i may take hold of". it's certainly not your casual sunday morning only Christianity.
this got me thinking: how intense am i?? do others look at me and say "whoa, calm down man. you don't have to be that into Jesus"? to be honest, i think the answer is "no." i'm probably more vocal about my faith than some people. (duh, i'm a youth pastor. i probably should be, right?) but i don't think people think i'm over-the-top fanatical.
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the other thing i wanted to mention in respect to philippians is that it's a really short book. for most people it'd be no problem to read it all in one sitting. so the question is: in your opinion, how much bible reading is the "right" amount?
growing up i had the idea in my head that "a chapter a day" was the right amount. i'm not really sure where i got that, nonetheless that's what i often did. later i heard that a "good Christian" should read the bible in a year. that works out to about 4-5 chapters a day. then i've heard said that you should just read a certain amount of time per day. (5 min., 15 min., 1 hour, etc.) or should we not focus on how much, but on what we are reading or that we are. so as long as you read 'something' out of the bibe every day that's all that matters. which brings up another question: how "often" should someone read the bible??
i'll post my own responses to these questions next week, until then tell me what you think and what do you actually "do" in the comments section.
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|| posted by reallife.MINISTRIES @ 7:39 PM
Comments: 4
4 Comments:
jessika,
i am totally rebelling and coveting your "Mary, Mary" cd.... if you are reading this.... so Annie brought it to church, and I LOVED IT, and I took it outside of church, and have been listening to it (which is SO WRONG)!
I have not submitted myself yet to actually hand it over. IT is not mine!
If you are wondering where your c.d. is, I have it.
I am sorry. I will hand it back Sunday unless you call for it earlier.
Ab, reading is a totally personal thing, right?
I have no idea for your answer. I am teaching my kids in their health class in their spiritual chapter fundamentals like, it can transform your life, etc.
I would love wisdom about this too. Lately, I have got myself in a lot of messes (within the last week especially), so I would say 2 hours a day for me is ideal right now....
maybe 1.5 hours would have kept me out of the ditch?
with prism stuff (I personally lump most devotional stuff with the 'reading the word' stuff) i have been averaging 45 minutes a day....
so, i am in the ditch and thus that was not sufficient.
on a side note, what is AG's position on predestination? some other discusssion......
holly (and anyone who's interested),
here's the AG position on predestination.
that was very helpful to learn about the A.G. stance on predestination...so holly, i guess you're not in any danger because you have my cd :)...just kidding.
about the Bible reading question. i'm not really sure what the "correct" amount of reading would be. i was reading our improving your serve book for the round table discussion early in the week and they were talking about the importance of meditating on God's word. that really helped me to see how much of my thought life is spent on other (mostly unimportant things). i usually don't make it a priority to let what i read sink into my heart or even stay in my head very long...God's been challenging me with on that. i don't think it's really the amount of time someone spends reading or the number of verses and chapters, i think it's about what one does with the reading...so that's my two cents about that.
abe,
thanks for the predesination link. i was trying to get out of my responsibility.... j/k
its good to know the church knocks that over.. haha
yeah, the improve your serve was good jessika, for the reading subject.
take every thought captive to christ. that word captive, and you talking, helped me visualize a thought being wrestled to the ground, and having it bound.
except i didn't visualize ropes, just to share... what do they do in wrestling? "1, 2, 3!" with the shoulder touching the ground?
you talked about meditating on the word for at least [some] time... so my wrestling man is lying there on the ground, with his shoulders held to the ground, to meditate in the captivity of Christ....
yeah, i know it is a stretch... felt like sharing my obscene (or mundane) mental tangents.
actually, i am now appreciating the sport of wrestling as very much like our walk with Christ.
You get to run in a 'rubber suit' for a while if you need to lose weight.
You get to gain weight super fast if that is the case.
You often look rediculous in those wrestling leotards....
You get to be very scrapy in your daily wrestling matches.
Your game time, per event, has tons and tons of preperation and little ring time.
Your on the spot on those ring times...
anyhow... another random tangent.
abe-my personal internet usage is up until i am out of this phase.
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