Bible Reading Plan

If you are looking for a Bible reading plan, here is one option. It goes through the New Testament and Psalms twice a year and the Old Testament once. Just click here.

John Piper's Short List of Scripture Memorization

At the New Attitude conference yesterday, Pastor John Piper encouraged us to memorize these several Bible verses to be ready for the fight in our thought life for faith and joy in God.

Anxiety:
Psalm 56:3, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you."

Uselessness:
1 Corinthians 15:58, "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the lord, knowing that in the lord your labor is not in vain."

Weakness:
2 Corinthians 2:19, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

Guidance:
Psalm 32:8, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you."
Psalm 25:8, "Good and upright is the lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way."

Affliction:
Psalm 34:19, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all."

Aging:
Isaiah 46:3-4, "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry, I will save."

Perseverance:
Philippians 1:6, "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."

Death:
Romans 14:7-9, "For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living."

Covetousness:
Hebrews 13:5, "Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' So we can constantly say, 'The lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"

Lust:
Matthew 5:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Psalm 84:11, "The LORD God is the sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly."

Bitterness/Anger:
Ephesians 4:32, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
Romans 12:19, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."

Matt Kessler vs. Chris Fuhrman

Fear of God

J. Gresham Machen writes:

Even the Christian must fear God. But it is another kind of fear. It is a fear rather of what might have been than of what is; it is a fear of what would come were we not in Christ. Without such fear there can be no true love; for love of the Saviour is proportioned to one's horror of that from which man has been saved. And how strong are the lives that are suffused with such a love! They are lives brave, not because the realities of life have been ignored, but because they have first been faced — lives that are founded upon the solid foundation of God's grace. May such lives be ours!

Perfect love casteth out fear. But if it be our love which casteth out fear, our love is only a response to the loving act of God. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." There is the culmination and the transformation of fear. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men," says Jesus, "him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven."

Read the whole article here.