(Quick confession: the title of this post is very similar to a post John Piper wrote this morning. I think he knew what I was going to write and beat me to it. But since he is John Piper and since some of you may have seen his post I thought I’d acknowledge his borrowing of my ideas :0.)

I can hardly put words to describe the desire I have that those words from Jesus (quoting Deuteronomy 8:3) would be true of me in 2012. And as a pastor it is my desire that these words would also be true of each of you in 2012. I am praying fervently for both!

But it will take a plan.

So as I pray for myself and for you, I am also planning and I want to encourage each of you to plan. We have been so blessed with amazing resources to help us in our Bible reading. Below are a few resources that I am aware of that might be of help.

But the bottom line is you need a plan! So today is Thursday, December 29. Spend some time before Sunday (1/1/12) thinking and praying and planning. I hope these ideas help.

Justin Taylor is one of my favorite bloggers and he has put together an amazing page/list of MANY types of plans. This is gold! Click here. Everything that I discuss below he covers on his page.

YouVersion is a free online Bible that can be accessed from iPhone and Droid and of course the “old fashioned” desktop computer. This website provides many ways to customize a Bible reading plan. Click here.

Personally, I plan to use the McCheyne plan (I have used this plan in years past). McCheyne takes you through the whole Bible once, and the Psalms and the New Testament twice. One of my favorite Bible Scholars/Theologians is D. A. Carson and he has written a devotional based on one of the readings for each day.

I’ve attached to this post a PDF document of the reading plan created by Discipleship Journal. You can read more about it here but the thing to note is that this will take you through the whole Bible in a year AND it provides “catch up” days each week so that if you get behind you can catch up!

Do you commute? Do you have a hard time reading? Consider listening to the Bible on CD or even stream it from you iPhone while you drive. “The entire Bible on audio is usually about 75 hours (or 4500 minutes). If you commute to work 5 days a week, that’s about 260 days a year. And if it takes you, say, 17 minutes to commute each way to work—and if you listen to the Bible on audio during your drive each way—you’ll get through the entire Bible twice in a year. This probably isn’t the only way to do Bible intake—but it’s one most of us should take advantage of more” (Justin Taylor).

Plan! Pray! Read! Live on His Word in 2012!