90 Day Challenge

By Jill Krueger Wagner

 I, once again, want to challenge you to take 15 minutes each day to read through the New Testament.

Someone once said that a person’s education is not complete without a thorough knowledge of the Bible. I have found this to be true. The one thing every Christian that I’ve admired had in common was a full knowledge of the Bible. Thus, I continue to say if you just take 15 minutes a day to read all of the New Testament, you will get an understanding of so many things. Among them, how God loves you, how God deals with sin, and how to be pleasing in His sight.

I want to address what happened to me when I first read the Bible.

·         I felt very guilty because I saw how lofty God’s standard is and how I fell woefully short. I went to my minister because I needed relief from the guilt. When I expressed my feelings that I could never measure up to God’s requirements, he slapped his knee and said, “Praise God, you’ve got it!” At my confused look his explained, “Jill, if we could be good enough for God, Jesus would not have had to die to pay for our sins. Since we couldn’t measure up, He came and paid the price to cover all our sins.” I felt like the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders and my gratefulness to God increased greatly.

·         I also noticed differences in the Gospels. They told the story with different details, each from a different perspective. I thought, if they all saw the same thing, wouldn’t the details match? It was someone familiar with the law who explained that when people came to court to give testimony about an event there was always variance in the details. If every detail matched there was a belief that there had been collusion and the testimony was disregarded. Different witnesses testifying to different details actually confirm the event not disprove it.

·         When I found what I thought were discrepancies, I contacted someone with more knowledge than I had and found plausible explanations.  

Today I occasionally still need forgiveness when I fall short of God’s holy standard. When that happens the first thing I do is confess and quote 1 John 1:9 to myself: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Then I remind myself of Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” I’m not perfect but I am forgiven, PRAISE GOD!!!!