5 Verses Most Christians Have Never Been Read From The Front
Nobody hid them from you. There are sixty six books and a sermon is twenty minutes, and no pastor alive can read you all of it. Here are five you were probably never handed, with the note that explains each one printed underneath. ★★★★★
There Is A Verse That Tells You How To Test A Person.
If a video brought you here, this is the one you heard.
If the spirit in a person is not of God, that verse says they will not be able to speak the words. They go round about it. They answer a slightly different question.
They show up in church. They sit right next to you. But they cannot say it.
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God."
So you ask them to say that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh and is from God. If they cannot get those few words out, that is how you know.
Now here is the part that should bother you.
Grown adults meet that verse for the first time in their forties. People raised in church. People who went to a Christian school. People who have owned a Bible since they were nine years old.
Nobody hid it from them. There are sixty six books, a sermon is twenty minutes, and no pastor alive can read you all of it from the front.
So the verses you have are the ones you have read yourself.
Here are four more you were probably never handed.
There Is A List In Scripture, And It Ends With An Instruction.
Nineteen things, one after the other. And the last line is not a suggestion.
"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. Avoid such men as these."
Read the second to last one again. Holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.
That is the church one. That is the person sitting right next to you on a Sunday. They have the form. The showing up. The right words at the right moment. What they do not have is the power, and you have felt that before without having a name for it.
And then Scripture does not say pray about it. It does not say wait and see. It says avoid such men as these.
In the Bible this page is taken from, there is a small arrow printed in the margin beside that verse. An arrow means look down. And at the foot of that same page, Dr. Charles Stanley explains it.
"There are those who go through the motions of religion but never genuinely trust the Lord as Savior. Because of their unbelief, the subtle but deadly sins of pride, greed, lust, unforgiveness, gossip, and so forth flow from their lives. To these, Jesus will say, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' They are false prophets who lead people astray, and we should have nothing to do with them."
Not a commentary you have to go out and buy. Not the back of the book. The page you are already on.
When Somebody Is Being Sweet To You, Proverbs Says Do Not Believe It.
That sounds wrong the first time you read it. It is in there, and it is about one specific kind of person.
"He who hates disguises it with his lips, but he lays up deceit in his heart. When he speaks graciously, do not believe him, for there are seven abominations in his heart. Though his hatred covers itself with guile, his wickedness will be revealed before the assembly."
Look at what it just said. It did not say a person who hates you will be rude to you. It said the opposite.
He disguises it with his lips. So the sweetness is the disguise. The compliments are the disguise.
And then it tells you how it ends, which is the part that lets you put it down. His wickedness will be revealed before the assembly. You do not have to expose anybody.
One verse further on, in the margin, there is an arrow. And at the foot of that page:
"If our actions are not led by the Lord, but are performed out of a desire for selfish gain or revenge, they will come back upon us to trap and destroy us. We reap what we sow, more than we sow, and later than we sow."
That is two verses and one note, and it settles something most people carry for years.
Scripture Defines Pure Religion, And It Is Not What Most People Would Guess.
Ask most Christians what pure religion is and you will hear something about belief, or church attendance, or holiness.
James defines it in one sentence, and it is not any of those.
"Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Visiting people in trouble. That is the definition. Not a doctrine, not a feeling, not an hour on a Sunday. Going to see somebody who is in distress.
There is an arrow beside it. Here is the note at the foot of that page.
"To be transformed into the image of Christ means to increasingly reflect His loving, compassionate character in our behavior. Therefore, if we are not becoming more loving toward others, especially the most helpless of our society, we have taken a wrong turn somewhere. We have either neglected our relationship with Him or have disobeyed His commands."
Notice what has happened four times now.
You read a verse. Then somebody explained it. On the same page.
The Psalm That Says The Help Of Man Is Useless.
This one turns up in the middle of an ordinary week, in the middle of an ordinary reading.
"O give us help against the adversary, for deliverance by man is in vain. Through God we shall do valiantly, and it is He who will tread down our adversaries."
There is an arrow beside verse twelve. And at the foot of that same page:
"While on our own we can do nothing, through faith in God we can do valiantly. So Paul said, 'I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me.'"
Five verses. Five notes. And every one of those notes was printed underneath the verse it belongs to.
All Five Came Out Of The Same Book, And You Do Not Go Looking For Them.
Every verse on this page came from The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible.
It is the complete Bible. Nothing left out and nothing reworded. What is different is two things.
The first is the marks in the margin.
A star means the verse you just read is a promise from God. In an ordinary Bible a promise is printed in the same size type as a list of names, and nothing tells you which is which.
An arrow means look down, because at the foot of that same page Dr. Stanley takes that verse apart in plain words. That is where every note on this page came from.
The second is that it is laid out by date, not by chapter.
You open it and find today's date. Old Testament reading first, which is the longest part. Then a Psalm. Then a Proverb. Then your New Testament reading. About fifteen minutes, and you are done.
Which is why nobody had to go hunting for the five verses above. They simply came up.
Across one year your eyes reach every page in the book. Including the pages nobody would ever have chosen for you, which is usually where the verses you needed were sitting.
One thing to be straight about. It is ordered by date rather than by chapter, so it is very good for reading and poor for looking things up. If you want to find a verse quickly on a Sunday morning, keep the Bible you already have for that.
That is the only thing it will not do for you.
"I have had mine for years and this is my fifth time all the way through. I grew up in church and in a Christian school and there are still verses I meet for the first time."
You Have Started Before. This Is Why It Stopped.
You have quit before. More than once. Another bookmark in February. Another quiet piece of evidence that something is wrong with you and not with the plan.
It was the plan. A reading schedule tracks your progress, which means it also tracks your debt. Miss a Tuesday and a Thursday and it tells you that you are nine days behind.
There is no schedule here. Open it to today's date and today is a full day's reading, however long it has been. There is no day to catch up to.
And here is what the year actually looks like.
- Week oneFour short readings a morning, and it feels easier than you expected.
- Month oneYou start meeting verses you did not know were in there.
- Month sixIt stops being a thing you do and becomes part of the morning.
- Twelve monthsYou will have read all sixty six books. Most Christians never do.
Nothing happens on day three, and nothing happens on day ten. If you want a book that changes your week, this is not it. It changes your year.
You do not need a year to know, though. You need one evening. So it comes with thirty days. Read it, and if Scripture has not started opening up, send it back and get every cent refunded. No forms, no questions.
You will not be the first. This Bible is read by more than 400,000 people and rated 4.9 out of 5 across 10,368 reviews.
Five Verses In Ten Minutes. There Are Thirty One Thousand More.
You did not go looking for a single one of those. They came up because somebody laid the year out for you.
That is the whole of it. Fifteen minutes a morning, and across a year your eyes reach every page in the book.
The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible
The verse, then Dr. Charles Stanley explaining it, printed on the same page. One dated reading a morning, about fifteen minutes, until you have read the whole book.
Charles F. Stanley · New American Standard · 365 Dated Readings
- Every day's reading already chosen, so you never decide where to start
- Old Testament, a Psalm, a Proverb and New Testament daily, so no morning is all dry
- A star marks every promise from God, so you know one when you see it
- An arrow points to the Life Lesson on that same page, where Dr. Stanley explains the verse
- Life Principles, full teaching pages, lined up with what you have just read
- Life Examples, showing a real person in Scripture and what happened to them
- What The Bible Says About, gathering everything Scripture says on one subject
- The complete New American Standard text, about an inch thick
- 365 dated readings, so twelve months from now you will have read all sixty six books
- Free express shipping and The Daily Prayer Blueprint ebook on 2 or 3 copies
- No schedule to fall behind on, and 30 days to send it back
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