The conclusion of how the apostle Peter ends his second letter has been on my mind.

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.  Amen.”

There are three questions that are good to ask one another:

1. What is God teaching you in your reading and memorizing of God’s Word? We read God’s Word because we trust that God has the best answer to our heart issues.  He cleanses us from sin and shows us the way.  And it is by hiding God’s Word in our hearts that we are strengthened in our battle against sin.  In the years past, I have utilized The NKJV Daily Bible.  I have liked this plan for its easy access to the daily reading and the mix of OT, Psalms, Proverbs, and NT selections.  This gives me a daily dose of law & prophets, worship, wisdom, and church instruction. Watersprings Church has developed this schedule into a three-year reading plan.  Basically, you read 3.2 chapters a day to read the Bible in one year or 1 chapter a day to read the Bible in three years.  Personally for the year 2017, I will be departing from my traditional yearly schedule by following the daily Bible reading plan tucked in the back pages of the Gospel Transformation Bible.  For any heart sanctification, we must dig deeply into heaven’s responses to these questions:  what to do? where to do it? why to do it? and how to do it?  And I think lasting transformation comes especially by being anchored in the answers to the last two questions as the Holy Spirit does spiritual heart surgery.
2. What are you praying for and with whom? It is crucial that we be daily praying alone to our good and great God. And weekly I think it is important that you gather with other believers for prayer.  Our prayers reveal our dependence upon God.  We cannot even begin to do life in 2017 on our own.  Let us covet one another’s prayers.
3. Are you faithfully gathering and serving Jesus within the context of a local church family? Activity in parachurch ministries provide immense satisfaction in our daily service for the King.  Christian nonprofit organizations existing as parachurch ministries bring about extremely helpful, specialized blessings to the community.  But the parachurch ministry is not Christ’s Church.  Every believer in Jesus must be rooted, established, loving, and serving in a local church family. As I was telling a friend today, Christ’s church in Idaho Falls is God’s gift to Jesus people.

God bless you all in the coming year.  May God’s Word be a lamp for your feet.  May the Spirit move mightily through your prayers.  And may God place you as living stones within His house.  May we grow in Jesus.

roots by the river in the city,

E.T.W.