Help! Love, MOM

The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son.

John 1:14 Good News Version

The grace of God as given to us in the scriptures is powerful and requires some effort on our part.

Labor to receive the free gift of grace? (Today is Labor Day in the U.S.)

Sounds a little like a bait and switch scheme.

However, when we think about, it makes sense that the scriptures will not magically get into our hearts. We must make the effort to engage with the Word.

This is true for every means of grace.

Pastor Tim Keller:

"Certainly we should be very active in seeking God, and Jesus himself called us to 'ask, seek, knock' in order to find him. Yet those who enter a relationship with God inevitably look back and recognize that God's grace had sought them out, breaking them open to new realities."

I pray that the grace of God is using this post to seek you out.  Find Him in The Word.

What follows was originally posted on 8/28/25. That entry was super long. I wanted to make the material more time accessible.

Blessings! xoxoKimberly

How to Continue or Start your Bible Reading Journey

Start Slow and Small.

Choose a segment of the Bible to read for just 5 minutes, regularly.

I know that here in America we laud the Big and Beautiful. However, the Kingdom of God grows by the principal of seeds.

If you regularly invest in looking at God through the grace of scripture even for just 5 ENGAGED minutes per day you will reap a gracious harvest of wanting to read — or listen to — more of it.

Try Listening to the Bible.

The truth is that many do not prefer to read. The visually impaired and others, of course, take great advantage of the blessing of audio Bible availability.

The usual venues for bible apps: BibleGateway, YouVersion and Blue Letter Bible and others have audio features.

Try Using a Different Translation.

According to Lifeway Research most find the Bible challenging to understand. Many report that the struggle for clear meaning is a barrier to regularly reading the Bible.

However, when I started to regularly read the Bible in different translations, it opened up marvelously! At that time I chose the Good News Version. Now I mostly read the King James Version or the English Standard Version.

For example, I had never understood the depth of the self righteous, coldness of Job’s friends toward his suffering.

Then I read Job in the GNV.

Discovering Job’s frenemies’ confident cruelty helps, I hope, to temper my heart and words when walking with those who walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Try reading the Bible in a community.

In 2019 my church read through the Bible together.

We creatively called it Through The Bible, Together (TTBT).

While not exactly fun, because major prophets in the summer, we enjoyed it.

My great takeaway since the initial whole church walkthrough experience is that I now read the Bible through every year to keep me on track with daily Bible reading.

Try a Bible reading plan.

All of the Bible apps also have Bible reading plans.

I highly recommend YouVersion which can be downloaded for free here. In the YouVersion app you can read the Bible on your own or within a community.

I’m on YouVersion. If you send me a friend request I’d be honored to join your Bible reading journey and to invite you to mine.

With various lengths and different topics available, you’re sure to find a Bible reading plan that God will use to speak to you about Himself.

YouVersion, approaching 1 billion downloads, is an amazing space to:

• read the Bible with friends or alone, in many versions;
• pray;
• follow your favorite Bible teacher or ministry.

I recommend How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth.

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart is especially helpful in its ability to clarify and to make the Bible more accessible.

I’m a church kid through and through. I find that having grown up with the Bible, I thought I knew what I needed to know about Job, to continue with my previous Bible example.

However, How to Read the Bible helped to re-awaken a fresh sense of awe and wonder about, so-called, familiar passages of scripture.

Finally, regularly (physically or virtually) join a Bible study.

Your local church – very likely has a Sunday School, Bible class, or a small group Bible study. These are GREAT places to bathe in scripture within a community who knows you. If you attend a larger church, joining a group is a great way to meet people.

CS Lewis Institute – offers free courses and low cost webinars, as well as in person and online resources on bible-based subject matter eg discipleship and others. I love that there is a live, teacher-led component for some of the teaching videos offered.

My discipleship instructor, Dr. James Philips, was the most well-informed, patient teacher our class could have asked for. I’m a Gideon Warrior, Dr. Jim = )

Dallas Theological Seminary – offers free courses. My course on Acts was helpful to my understanding of that complex book. I am thankful for an institution which enjoys the sterling reputation of DTS and also makes free materials available.

When I signed up for my course there was a strong encouragement to give an amount of your choice to DTS which I was happy to do. However, in order to take the class you do not have to donate.

Desiring God – has a massive collection of the prolific work mainly of Dr. John Piper former pastor and public theologian, author and friend of Christians everywhere. Most resources are free.

Desiring God also features the work of many gifted speakers and writers and has been invaluable in helping me clarify my thoughts on Bible-based subjects.

Jude 3 Project – offers courses, mainly for black Christians, specifically about apologetics or apologetics adjacent subjects.

While faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God there are those individuals who also benefit from a culturally cohesive presentation of that faith. Most of Jude 3’s resources are available for a reasonable cost, however, they also offer many podcasts and other video resources for free.

Insight for Living – like Desiring God, has a huge collection of resources that are mostly available for free and are mostly a reflection of the preaching and teaching ministry of Pastor Chuck Swindoll (Dr. Charles R. Swindoll).

The overview charts (scroll to the bottom of the page) that the IFL team create for each Bible book are helpful, free tools which outline and explain the major themes, etc., of all 66 books of the Bible.

Come back to your first Love. Find God. Know Jesus. Read the Word.

Continue in the faith.