When the king heard what was written in the book, God’s Revelation, he ripped his robes in dismay. 2 Chronicles 34:19 (MSG)

My daughter, Madison, called me the other week. She’d been asked by a friend to discuss what she believed about death. She certainly had some strong convictions about what happens when you die, but when she went to God’s Message to support her presuppositions, she was both surprised and challenged. She had difficulty backing up some of the notions she held with scriptural evidence.

There is no substitute for reading God’s Message yourself. It’s one of the reasons my friend Kevin and I started this chapter-a-day journey several years ago. It’s one thing to hear others talk about what the Bible says, but it’s another thing to step in and personally read it, study it, and meditate on it.

I suggested some passages of God’s Message for Madison to read. As we talked, she was prompted to do some further study on a couple of key concepts about death. As a father, I was quietly delighted to listen to her and observe the process. She’s stepping out, digging in, and through it God is refining her faith.

People have told me that they read and appreciate what I write about each chapter, and I’m humbled to know that others value my thoughts. For the record, however, my thoughts are not what the chapter-a-day journey is about. Chapter-a-day is about reading God’s Message yourself, letting God speak to you through His Word, and personally responding to it. Just like Josiah in today’s chapter, it’s our own personal interaction with God’s Message that makes a real difference. 

Each chapter-a-day post contains a link to the entire chapter. I encourage you to start clicking on it, reading the chapter yourself, and sharing what spoke to you, encouraged you, challenged you, or what it made you think about. Share it with a friend. Share it in a comment to each day’s post. I’d love to know your thoughts.