35 Ways to Get More Out of Your Bible Reading Time.

1. Read scripture because you love the inspired author of the Bible.
2. Read for guidance and strength 
3. Read about real  love, peace, and Joy
4. Draw a bible timeline  in you bible (some bibles include a timeline at the beginning of each book) 
5. Go through the bible with a small group
6. Insert your name into the scripture you are reading
7. Turn a psalm into a prayer
8. Try to draw what is described in revelations.
9. Imagine the you are one of the character in the bible put yourself into the story.
10. Memorize scripture 
11. Post scripture all over your walls
12. Share scripture on facebook
13. Do a scripture translation comparison
14. Do a word study
15. Study what the scriptures says in Hebrew and Greek
16. Go to a bible study website, biblegateway.com  mystudybible.com
17. Get a nice study bible
18. Read some bible commentary
19. Have a bible study date
20. Go to your favorite spot in the woods and read your bible
21. Get a bible handbook and read a book of the bible
22. Get a bible dictionary 
23. Listen to an audio bible
24. Listen to a bible podcast
25. Create a skit using a bible story
26. See if you can turn a Psalm into a song.
27. Use scripture has inspiration to create art 
28. Read scripture out loud for the elderly or the visually impaired 
29. Do a one year bible study
30. Do a subject study ( Get a concordance and read every scripture about a certain subject)
31. Read all the words of Jesus
32. Read all the parables of Jesus
33. Read some old testament stories and imagine you are reading a script to an epic action movie.
34. Go through your bible and highlight scriptures that talks about God's character.
35. Put tabs on your bible using post it notes 

Suggestions for Starting Your Day Out in the Spirit

It is vital that we have some kind of devotion time in the mornings. This is not a matter of having God pleased with you; It's a matter of war. Everyday two epic forces battle to win the rights for your day. Romans 8:12 http://msb.to/Ro8:12 calls these epic forces the flesh and the spirit. When you wake up have you ever noticed that some of the worst fights between families can happen in the morning and if anything is going to go wrong it will happen in the morning? When you start your day beat down or depressed because of what you perceive the day to hold, the results will be a day that will start out in the flesh and possibly end in the flesh . That's why it's important to start off the day in the spirit. Often time we go through our day defeated and then ask God for forgiveness at night, only to find the cycle continue again the next morning. Instead of giving God the first fruits of our mourning, we give him the leftovers of our day. Often at night we are tired and sometimes don't feel like having a devotion. In the morning we are hopefully renewed and ready to take on the day, so it makes sense to give this part of the day to the Lord.

Here are some suggestions for having a time of devotion in the mourning.

1. Pray that God would have the day: Do this before your feet hit the ground.
2. Worship God: Remind yourself of His character, put on your favorite praise song, whatever you do for    worship.
3. Remind yourself of your blessings: Keep an on going list in a journal
4. Pray that God would give you a scripture for the day.
5. Open God's Word: Write down a scripture to encourage you throughout the day.
6. Read a devotional
7. Close in Prayer ( Ask God to reveal to you anything that may tempt you or upset you that day. Ask Him to prepare you to tackle these problems in His strength)

This can be done in 15 to 30 minutes.

Is a White Knight in Shinning Armor Waiting For You?

Recently, I started looking at the women at the well in a whole new way. The next time you read the story of the woman at well ask yourself this question did this woman find her knight in shinning armor. Let's find out, John 4: 7-26

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water.  “Give Me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 for His disciples had gone into town to buy food.

 9 “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

 10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”

 11 “Sir,” said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

 13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”

 15 “Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

   16 “Go call your husband,” He told her, “and come back here.”

 17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.

   “You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

 19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”

 21 Jesus told her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

 25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

   26 “I am He,” Jesus told her, “the One speaking to you.”

So, let me ask again did the woman find her Knight? It is obvious that she had thought she had found her knight five times, only to find out he wasn't the one to fulfill all Her needs and move on to the next guy. In the movie Big Fish, there is a scene in the movie where it talks about love at  first sight. Here is the scene .

Reality is that life is more complicating than this scene and  reality often follows. I wonder if the woman at the well thought she had met the man of her dreams each time she married. Lets back the scene up for a moment and look at that moment she met Jesus. There she was sitting at the well getting water when a Jew of all people walks up to her.  Time stands still. He walks up to her and ask for water but she senses he wants more than water. He starts talking about water like it is something she has always wanted. When she asked for the water, this man asked her a question that reveals who she is and makes her feel vulnerable but not in a way to make her want to run away but in a way that makes her thankful that this man knows her unending desires. The man reveals her needs are being met in the wrong way and shows her, her true desire. Her true desire is to be loved unconditionally.  This man Jesus offers His unconditional love. After discovering that Jesus of Nazareth is the long a waited promised messiah she runs through the town and shouts about Jesus' all knowing love through out the town. So did she find her knight in shinning armor, yes she did and His name is Jesus. If we let Jesus, who is chasing after us with an unrelenting love be our unending source of unconditional love. We will find that this love helps us wait on the person God has for us. I waited 33 years to get married and I could not have waited without God's help. If I didn't have God's love pulling me through that time, I might have married someone other than Kendra. Really it was only went I found myself content in God's love was I able to put off my since of urgency and watch God put Kendra into my life.

Joy Does Come in the Morning, Don't Let the Discouragement of Today Define Your Tomorrows.

Just realized that ever milestone in me and Kendra relationship has an interesting story. Recently me and Kendra worked  a puzzle for our first anniversary. We worked the 1000 piece puzzle for hours trying to get the puzzle done. The puzzle was taking up precious time and becoming an obsession. The puzzle was just about through went we noticed that two pieces to the puzzle were missing. We looked everywhere for the pieces. Today I called Grandma and found out that Grandma had found the puzzle pieces at her cabin where me and Kendra spent our anniversary. I think that God makes ever milestone in my marriage  interesting so that they can  become teaching moment for others. God taught me with this lesson that you may think a situation is hopeless, (we were going to get a new puzzle) but patience will always reveal the truth. This may sound simplified but God has shown me this lesson in more dramatic ways (like waiting 30 years to get married). Joy does come in the morning (Psalms 30:5) don't let today define your tomorrows. Just think of all the instances in the bible where the situation seemed hopeless but God turned the situation around. For example: Jesus being crucified (hopeless situation from the point of view of the disciples) and then His Resurrection ( hopelessness became victory). Look at the situation with Lazarus, or Ester, hopelessness turned into victory.

The Many Faces of Christ

Watch this video.

The Face: Jesus in Art is one of the best documentaries on Jesus and art. The bible gives very little details on the physical appearance of Christ. Throughout the centuries man has tried to construct a visual representation of what Christ looks like. A study of Christian history will reveal that the representation of Christ in Art will reflect the ideal of Christ that dominate during that particular time. For instances, during times of peace Christ represented has beautiful without blemish but during times of war the humanity of Christ is shown with wounds and scares. I believe however that Jesus was blemished physically but what counted to God was that Jesus was internally without blemish (Jesus was sinless). Below I have listed what scripture says about his appearance.

Matthew 28:3
New International Version (NIV)
His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. (Appearance after the Resurrection)

Rev 1:12-16
New International Version (NIV) (Future Appearance)

12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man,[d] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

Isaiah 52: 14-15 53: 1-3 ( Appearance of the Suffering Servant)
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him[a]—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,[b]
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.

Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Rev 5:6 NIV
6 Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.

There may be other scriptures to describe His appearance but they are few. The interesting thing to draw from scripture is that He is described in different ways depending on the event that is takeing place in scripture. From a suffering servant that has no beauty to attract us, to a resurrected conquering savior with the appearance of lighting, to the slain majestic lamb upon the throne who shines like the sun

This is A nice parable that explains why we need foriegn missions.

This is A nice parable that explains why we need foriegn missions.

by James M. Weber, missionary to Japan
Once upon a time there was an apple grower who had acres and acres of apple trees. In all, he had 10,000 acres of apple orchards.
One day he went to the nearby town. There, he hired 1,000 apple pickers. He told them:
"Go to my orchards. Harvest the ripe apples, and build storage buildings for them so that they will not spoil. I need to be gone for a while, but I will provide all you will need to complete the task. When I return, I will reward you for your work.
"I'll set up a Society for the Picking of Apples. The Society -- to which you will all belong -- will be responsible for the entire operation. Naturally, in addition to those of you doing the actual harvesting, some will carry supplies, others will care for the physical needs of the group, and still others will have administrative responsibilities."
As he set up the Society structure, some people volunteered to be pickers and others to be packers. Others put their skills to work as truck drivers, cooks, accountants, storehouse builders, apple inspectors and even administrators. Every one of his workers could, of course, have picked apples. In the end, however, only 100 of the 1,000 employees wound up as full-time pickers.
The 100 pickers started harvesting immediately. Ninety-four of them began picking around the homestead. The remaining six looked out toward the horizon. They decided to head out to the far-away orchards.
Before long, the storehouses in the 800 acres immediately surrounding the homestead had been filled by the 94 pickers with beautiful, delicious apples.
The orchards on the 800 acres around the homestead had thousands of apple trees. But with almost all of the pickers concentrating on them, those trees were soon picked nearly bare. In fact, the ninety-four apple pickers working around the homestead began having difficulty finding trees which had not been picked
As the apple picking slowed down around the homestead, Society members began channeling effort into building larger storehouses and developing better equipment for picking and packing. They even started some schools to train prospective apple pickers to replace those who one day would be too old to pick apples.
Sadly, those ninety-four pickers working around the homestead began fighting among themselves. Incredible as it may sound, some began stealing apples that had already been picked. Although there were enough trees on the 10,000 acres to keep every available worker busy, those working nearest the homestead failed to move into unharvested areas. They just kept working those 800 acres nearest the house. Some on the northern edge sent their trucks to get apples on the southern side. And those on the south side sent their trucks to gather on the east side.
Even with all that activity, the harvest on the remaining 9,200 acres was left to just six pickers. Those six were, of course, far too few to gather all the ripe fruit in those thousands of acres. So, by the hundreds of thousands, apples rotted on the trees and fell to the ground.
One of the students at the apple-picking school showed a special talent for picking apples quickly and effectively. When he heard about the thousands of acres of untouched faraway orchards, he started talking about going there.
His friends discouraged him. They said: "Your talents and abilities make you very valuable around the homestead. You'd be wasting your talents out there. Your giftscan help us harvest apples from the trees on our central 800 acres more rapidly. That will give us more time to build bigger and better storehouses. Perhaps you could even help us devise better ways to use our big storehouses since we have wound up with more space than we need for the present crop of apples."
With so many workers and so few trees, the pickers and packers and truck drivers -- and all the rest of the Society for the Picking of Apples living around the homestead -- had time for more than just picking apples.
They built nice houses and raised their standard of living. Some became very conscious of clothing styles. Thus, when the six pickers from the far-off orchards returned to the homestead for a visit, it was apparent that they were not keeping up with the styles in vogue with the other apple pickers and packers.
To be sure, those on the homestead were always good to those six who worked in the far away orchards. When any of those six returned from the far away fields, they were given the red carpet treatment. Nonetheless, those six pickers were saddened that the Society of the Picking of Apples spent 96 percent of its budget for bigger and better apple-picking methods and equipment and personnel for the 800 acres around the homestead while it spent only 4 percent of its budget on all those distant orchards.
To be sure, those six pickers knew that an apple is an apple wherever it may be picked. They knew that the apples around the homestead were just as important as apples far away. Still, they could not erase from their minds the sight of thousands of trees which had never been touched by a picker.
They longed for more pickers to come help them. They longed for help from packers, truck drivers, supervisors, equipment-maintenance men, and ladder builders. They wondered if the professionals working back around the homestead could teach them better apple-picking methods so that, out where they worked, fewer apples would rot and fall to the ground.
Those six sometimes wondered to themselves whether or not the Society for the Picking of Apples was doing what the orchard owner had asked it to do.
While one might question whether the Society was doing all the owner wanted done, the members did keep very busy. Several members were convinced that proper apple picking requires nothing less than the very best equipment. Thus, the Society assigned several members to develop bigger and better ladders as well as nicer boxes to store apples. The Society also prided itself at having raised the qualification level for full-time apple pickers.
When the owner returns, the Society members will crowd around him. They'll proudly show off the bigger and better ladders they've built and the nice apple boxes they've designed and made. One wonders how happy that owner will be, however, when he looks out and sees the acres and acres of untouched trees with their unpicked apples.
Original version appeared in Let's Quit Kidding Ourselves About Missions, Moody Press. © 1979 by The Moody Bible Institute. Edited and revised by Howard Culbertson.

Bible Translations favored by Billy Graham, David Jeremiah and Others

Bible Translations That Famous Preachers Use
(This list was complied by going directly to the websites of these pastors. Although they endorse a certain translation, most preachers uses several different translations.)

• Greg Laurie- New Living Translation
• David Platt- New International Version (NIV)
• Billy Graham- Various Translations (Said he uses NIV when writing articles) (Early Years King James)
• David Jeremiah - Uses the New King James Version and the Message 
• Chuck Swindoll - Uses the New American Standard Bible
• Charles Stanley- New American Standard Bible
• James MacDonald  - English Standard Version
• John Piper- New American Standard Bible and the English Standard Version 
• John Maxwell- New King James Version 
• Max Lucado - New Century Version 

Observations : It is clear to see that each preacher endorses a different translation. How many different preachers do you listen too and trust? Do you endorse just one version of the bible or many? It would be hard to go with just one translation of the bible because you would have to say that more than one of these preachers are teaching heresy. Each translation has it place in our bible studying and reading. Some translations are better for when you just wanting to read the bible, some are good for bible study, and others are good for preaching. In the end we need to use God and His Holy Spirit has the main source to which  we get our convictions concerning the bible. Prayerfully examine each translation and be open to God so he can show you truth.

This Link may help you sort out the difference between translations  http://www.apbrown2.net/web/TranslationComparisonChart.htm

What is the major factor that shapes your spiritual outlook on life? (What Are You Rooted In ?)

• Is it Church?
• Is it your Pastor?
• Your Parents or Family?
• The Bible ?
• Your Denomination? (Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, etc...) 
• Your Friends?
• Sunday School Teacher
• God/ Christ/ Holy Spirit?

Our belief system is really a combination of the above factors. Of course one of these factors will become the foundation of our spiritual beliefs. Whatever we rely on the most to determine what we believe will act has a filter to all other influences that are in our lives. Therefore, it is very important to find out what influences you the most. Naturally if I was to ask which of these influences is supposed to be the number one influence in a Christians life? The go to answer for most, will be Christ/God. This is scriptural Ephesians 2:19-20 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. The cornerstone is the most important stone in the building. Without the cornerstone the building would crumble.

However, if examination is made to reveal someones core influential factor the results can be shocking.

The Test

• A good test to reveal your most influential factor is to think about basically what you know about God. Next,write out a simple paragraph about what you believe about God. Also write out what you know about God's character. Now look at the paragraph and ask yourself how do you know what you believe is true? Ask the following questions:
• Can you describe a personal experiences with God that backs up your belief? 
• What Scriptures backs up this belief?
• Do you test with the Holy Spirit and scripture what your friends, parents,church, denomination, and pastor say about Christ?

When you talk about spiritual things is your conversation dominated by what God has shown you in scripture or is it about what your pastor has said or church believes?
If someone ask you about your relationship with Jesus Christ do you start describing your church attendance or how many times you read the bible instead of giving a personal testimony about how Christ saved you and what he is doing in your life?There is nothing wrong with letting the factors I have described in this blog influence your beliefs. The danger comes when you choose something other than Christ to become the major influence in your life. I understand for new Christians that they may start with a dependency on the Church or other influences but theses influences should serve to help us create personal growing dependency upon Christ. When we are able to put Christ at the center of our beliefs and anchor our roots deep in Christ, we will find all other influences are put into proper perceptive.