Our senior pastor challenged us to a church-wide mitzvot to read through the One Year Bible in 2010. This sounded like a great idea to me. As much as I hate to admit it, I've never read the ENTIRE Bible--cover to cover--even though I've been following Christ since I was a child. This also really, really appealed to my somewhat competitive ambitious nature-- I LOVE A CHALLENGE! I went right out to amazon.com and purchased the One Year Bible for my kindle--FABULOUS Christmas gift from my sweet husband--and jumped right in on January 1.
The whole thing started off swimmingly. Genesis was great; it had the excitement of creation, the flood, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, the great promises made to Abraham. Revisiting all those bible stories I've loved since I was a kid was wonderful. The time seemed to fly by each morning as I read through the assigned passages and before I knew it, I had read 12% of the bible! Then we got to Leviticus...
Leviticus 9: 19-21 Then he took the fat of the bull and the ram—the fat of the broad tail and from around the internal organs—along with the kidneys and the long lobes of the livers. He placed these fat portions on top of the breasts of these animals and burned them on the altar. Aaron then lifted up the breasts and right thighs as a special offering to the Lord, just as Moses had commanded.
And there you have it, the reason I've never read the Bible all the way through. I would always get bogged down in Leviticus, with all those repetitive, very graphic passages about goat heads, kidney lobes and Aaron's bloody toes and earlobes--yuck! And I'd really like to know what God had against yeast--a wise man would have definitely gotten entirely out of the yeast market and put all of his shekels in turtle doves... okay, now I'm rambling.
Surely that stuff isn't so important today, it's not like we round up the first born of our flock every Sunday morning before heading off to our place of worship, right??? Riiiiight, but let's get back to this mitzvot thing. The whole point of the mitzvot is to commit to something that if done in the right spirit can prove transformational to the um--mitzvee. And let me tell you, I could use transformational--ESPECIALLY. IN. THE. AREA. OF. DISCIPLINE. Okay, you don't have to agree SO vigorously--I can see you out there nodding your heads-- "oh bless her heart she sure could..."
So that's it-- no skipping, skimming or dodging of the less than riveting passages. This will be my sacrifice, the sweet fragrance I offer up to Him. I will joyfully apply myself to this task, even when it's not exciting. And while I'm at it, I'll claim this promise, "And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns." Philipians 1:6 NLT
Here's a link if you want to join me on this journey...One Year Bible
