There are many ways that are available nowadays to help us read through the entire Bible in one year.  I would really like to emphasize that reading it all the way through is such a blessing.  Sometimes it’s hard to stick with it when there seem to be endless laws and genealogies.  However, when you come to the end of the year, you can clearly see that God had a plan all along.  Each dispensation was a step along the long road towards His ultimate goal, to live here on earth with His children.

You can see that after sin happened, there had to be a process of salvation.  God first needed to find a man that had enough of God’s life in him to be salvaged from the evil that had exploded on earth.  He found such a man in Noah.  Then, He needed to find a man of complete faith.  He found Abraham.  The story moves on from there.  We read about sins, overcomings, famines and then the move to Egypt.  Then came slavery and finally emancipation through God’s servant Moses.  God gave ten commandments and seemingly endless laws.  These laws were meant to guide mankind back to God, not to become a god of themselves.  We read about judgments and blessings along with battles with losses and victories.  Finally, there were some ready to meet God’s Son, Jesus.  Jesus fulfilled the law and brought the way to salvation to a higher level.  We now have His example to inspire and guide us through the midst of this portion of earth’s history.

When you read the Bible from start to finish, you can see for yourself that it is not just the story of one nation, but it is our story.  God has been bringing mankind up from the pits of sin since the days of Adam and Eve.  Not everyone cooperates with God’s plan.  After all, there is such a thing as free will, but He is always hoping that each one will choose Him.  Although it’s the story of mankind’s salvation, it’s not just mankind’s story.  It’s my story, the story of God’s salvation road for me.  And for you.  God needs to find individuals that have enough God in them, a genuine love for His goodness to start on the road towards salvation.  Then He is looking for the man of faith in us to listen to His voice and obey.  We start with the simple commandments and learn to cooperate with them.  Then we move on to spiritual battles between our sin nature and the God nature in us.  We have losses and victories along the way.  Finally, we come to a point where we fall completely in love with our Savior, Jesus.  We each have our spiritual battles to fight.  God leads us along the way, from battle to battle, victory to victory.  Sometimes the way seems tortuous, and other times we can feel almost giddy with the happiness of victory.

In the last two chapters of Revelation, God speaks of a great and beautiful city.  One day, that city may or may not be actual, but it is surely a correspondence of what will be in our hearts when we overcome.  Our earth will become a place of great beauty and our humanities will be filled with God’s life and glory, either here on earth or in the next life.

Take heart.  Continue on this long uphill climb.  I really do recommend reading for yourself this wonderful life guide that our loving Father left for us, to guide us and uplift us, His holy book, The Bible.  You can even listen to it online in whatever version you prefer.  The Daily Audio Bible is one online Bible (but there are others) that is read cover to cover in one year.  It just takes about 20 or 30 minutes a day.

But He answered and said, “It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”” Matthew 4:4

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.  John 8:36