Hello friends. Here are more resources for you to help you start a Bible reading plan in 2025. Before I share them, please read this blog on the personal benefits for you to go deeper into the Bible.
“It’s important to speak His Word over every aspect of our lives and to reject any words that do not align with His teachings. We must be diligent to read the Word daily. Study His Word. Pray the Word. Believe the Word above anything and everything else. In doing this, we build our house upon the Rock. A house built upon the Rock will stand firm.”
Built Upon the Rockanewthingministries.com
About 70% of the Bible is the Old Testament books. Here is a good short devotional on why it’s very important for us to read and study the Old Testament books. Christians who do not study the Old Testament books have skewed understanding of God’s character and will, and have shallower faith. Therefore, they are more easily manipulated and deceived by the devil, and in a great storm their life crumbles quickly. Many numb their grief and trauma through various addictions and bad relationships.
Is the Old Testament Still Relevant?worldchallenge.org
I just discovered a new audio Bible podcast called Commuter Bible where you listen 5 days a week. They start on January 6.
5-day audio Bible podcastscommuterbible.org
Navigators and Biblegateway offer many free Bible reading plans and studies.
Bible Reading Plans & Studies for 2025navigators.org
If you want more Audio Bible options, Biblegateway offers several free ones. I like the NIV Dramatized.
BibleGateway.com- Audio Biblesbiblegateway.com
Speaking about the Audio Bible, I read this devotional about 13 years ago and I wish I had saved it. I read this devotional at a time when the Holy Spirit was trying to convince me how important reading and studying the Bible is for my soul. I was going through depression and had a tough time shaking the blues off. I was going to see a therapist about taking antidepressants. But then God used someone to remind me to try Bible reading. It worked! I haven’t suffered any long bouts of depression ever since I’ve incorporated Bible reading into my daily routine.
In this devotional, this event happened during the time when mentally challenged and disturbed people were thrown into a mental asylum and locked away. A woman of God was burdened by the Lord to go into a local mental asylum and read the Bible. She received permission by the authorities and she read the Bible daily in the mental asylum. She simply read the Bible. I’m sure back then it was only the King James Version too. Overtime, the patients in the mental asylum became sane! Their minds were restored! There was no preaching, only the reading of the Holy Bible by this one godly woman.
If you have mental difficulties such as anxieties, panic attacks, depression, fears, etc. Simply turn on the Audio Bible. Even if you are not fully paying attention like these severe mental patients in the asylum, something happens in the atmosphere and you will have more peace and calm in your mind and soul. God’s word in the Bible is alive and powerful. You don’t have to understand the how’s, just know that God’s word is supernatural and it’ll do wonders for your mind and soul.
Pastor Francis Chan’s church is rediscovering God’s presence more by reading the Bible more from the pulpit. It’s beautiful how this simple process is unifying their church members and allowing their people to experience God’s presence more when they gather.
Rediscovering God’s Presence | Francis ChanCrazy Love Podcast · December 16, 2024
If it’s your first time reading through the Bible, you will have many questions and even be offended. When that happens please reach out to your pastors, church leaders and friends who study their Bible continually like I do. I’m sure they have probably wrestled through them or if they haven’t; then they can point you to good resources for your deeper dive. Just do not stop reading the Bible because of your offense. Just like chemo medication, it takes time. Don’t give up on your first round of chemo treatment.
Here are the current mental health statistics in our country. So many people in our country are suffering mentally. If you have a friend or family member who is suffering mentally, please urge them to commit to Bible reading in this new year. There’s no harm in trying for one year.
Mental health statistics 2025usatoday.com
One more thing, when you start reading the entire Bible for the first time, you’ll realize that it’s also a book that has much to day on how to live your life, handle relationships and money, etc. If you choose to follow God’s guidance then you’ll discover more peace in your life, because following God’s path brings peace and order. God created us and everything in the universe. He knows what works to bring peace into your chaos. This visiting pastor at TSC did a good job recapping this point.
The Increase of Our Peace | Times Square Church Sermonssermons.tsc.nyc
This episode was really good too. Three bible teachers shared their thoughts about hearing the voice of God correctly. It’s only 20 minutes long. Please give them a listen.
Since 2024 was rocked by big scandals in the charismatic/pentecostal Church with their abuse of biblical authority; let us learn more about what the Bible teaches on biblical leadership and also how we should submit to our leaders in the church. I thought this one was very good.
What the Bible Really Says About Leadership & SubmissionThe Roys Report · December 30, 2024
If you have time, please watch this documentary about Mother Teresa. In my opinion this is what true, biblical leadership looks like. You don’t have to agree with everything in this documentary produced by a Catholic organization, but you will learn a lot about biblical love and leadership. I had no idea that her nuns and their organization set up centers in the USA. You’ll see their stories from the darkest and most dangerous neighborhoods in Brooklyn NY to Chicago IL. It was incredibly moving to see the nuns in action in the neighborhoods that most of us would never venture into…unless we receive divine orders from God like Mother Teresa did. By the way, she struggled with her calling, had deep bouts of depression and you’ll see that throughout this documentary. I also learned what the unreached people need from Christians – love and compassion, not our judgement against their choices and lifestyle. I gravitate towards harshness and judgement, and so watching this documentary was very good for me to remember that love is the greatest in God’s kingdom. Since I don’t have this kind of love within me as defined by God’s word in 1 Corinthians 13; I have to ask God for this supernatural “agape” love.
No Greater Love Film – HOMEmotherteresamovie.com
I also learned a lot from this interview with a 26 year old hardcore, follower of Jesus Christ on why many young Christians are struggling and falling from their faith even when they are raised in the church and good Christian families. He had a very tough upbringing and grew up in a neighborhood like the ones that Mother Teresa and her nuns went into. Anyway, he doesn’t talk like we are used to. Please listen to him with an open heart. I learned a lot from his candid sharing and his revelations received about God and the issues of today’s Church in the USA.
Please don’t discount him by the way he looks and speaks, and by his young age. Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr was only 26 years old when he was suddenly propelled into leadership in the civil rights movement?
He was offered several good jobs to be a professor at seminary colleges or to be a pastor of bigger churches in the north. Yet he and his wife decided to serve the black church community in the south. And it was Montgomery, Alabama – the capital of the Confederate Union during the Civil War. They were only going to serve for couple of years or so. Then one day, Rosa Parks decided that she wouldn’t get up from her bus seat… and then the civil rights movement began. Did you know that the bus boycott lasted over a year?! That’s a very long time to organize carpooling and boycotting the buses until the bus segregation was abolished. God chose the right leader to lead by raising up MLK Jr. and putting him in place at just the right moment.
This is the book that I’m reading for my online class. It’s excellent.
A Testament of Hope: The Essential… book by Martin Luther King Jr.thriftbooks.com
Here is a short article that MLK Jr wrote about suffering and faith for a Christian magazine. (It was in that book.)
Suffering and faithchristiancentury.org
I’m throwing a lot out here for you to review from. I think it’s important since we are starting a new year. Let’s start this new year by dedicating our minds fully to what God is saying to us through the Holy Bible.
Journal of Faith 