Spontaneous Discipline

...just a preview

Since the last post was on new year's resolutions, I thought I would reveal a little of what I am planning to study this year.

I said planning to study rather than going to study because as Jonathan Edwards said, we need God's grace to keep our resolutions, and for them to matter. So inasmuch as God shines His grace on me, I am resolved to keep at it through 2010.

I would love to say that studying God's holy word and reading delicious books comes naturally, effortlessly, and spontaneously but that would be far from the truth. I mean, we all desire to be spontaneous. We all wish it would come naturally, and we know it should. At least for me I need to take hold of certain means of grace to keep myself in the Word and learning from God fearing men.

One of those means is to plan out what I want to read and not to overbook myself with too much. I can read a number of books in a year, but I am not a speed reader, and overloading myself is a good way to get discouraged and bomb out of reading books altogether for a season.

Last year I found out that a good read-through-the-bible-in-a-year-plan works for me.

There are several to choose from.

The Discipleship Journal plan is offers a 4 part, short selection of readings, starting in Genesis, Psalms, Matthew, and Acts at the same time. With 20 minutes a day read for only 25 days a month it gives much grace to the reader. I opted to choose this one for 2010.

The official Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers is also a great option. It has check boxes like the DJP, but instead of a monthly schedule it uses the weekly method with no dates. The reader gets a fantastic opportunity to dig into,

O.T. Poetry on Sunday,
The Pentateuch on Monday,
O.T. History on Tuesday and Wednesday,
O.T. Prophets on Thursday,
N.T. History on Friday,
and N.T. Epistles on Saturday

I have been thinking recently that I should toss out a reminder that discipline is a means of grace and often leads to the spontaneous. And I especially want to get this out;

if we are in Christ, then we are Sons of God by adoption and He looks at us as his children with the eyes of a Father rather than a judge. And it is only Christ's blood and perfect righteousness that is sufficient to give us the freedom to serve and know more about God because we are accepted, rather than to labor and study in order to be accepted by God. What a difference that can make for the troubled soul!

Romans 4:6-8 David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."



Soli Deo Gloria,

Josh

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