Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Our church, The Hampton Roads Church, begins a 40 day journey tomorrow as we read through and LIVE through the New Testament.

While I've read through the Bible using an annual reading plan, I've never read through the New Testament in just 40 Days. It's not an overwhelming commitment — just 25 minutes a day if I read it out loud, about half that time if I read it silently. However, I fear that such a goal has the potential to leave me inwardly focused — exactly opposite what the Holy Spirit intends for me as I read His power packed pages. In fact, when we determined to read the through the NT, we did so in order to immerse ourselves in Jesus, NT life, NT disciples, NT ethos and NT devotion in order to better live out NT Christianity in our far removed culture littered throughout with compromised Christianity. James has the prescription for a godly reading of Scripture: DO WHAT IT SAYS! 

And so we will. If I were doing this alone, I would anticipate anemic results. But I'm doing this side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds and hundreds of Spirit-filled sincere disciples of Jesus. The body of Christ dedicated to the imitation of the Christ will prove potent. It's with that anticipation of Spirit-led transformation that I begin this series of blogs on our journey (and I welcome fellow travellers to join in the conversation with comments below). Each day I will endeavor to journal on reflections to three questions:

1. What did I learn about God?
2. What did I learn about NT Christianity?
3. What did the Holy Spirit convict me to put into practice today? (plus how did it go?)

Stay tuned. Our journey begins tomorrow.