In this article last week, I discussed the importance of the first goal of our church’s Strategic Plan—leading our members to spend time interacting with God through His Word each day. It’s the only way we can live according to His will. I trust you will begin making a two-way conversation with God a part of your daily routine. That is the most important “Listening Session” you’ll ever experience!

Consider our second goal:

Loving God as a biblical congregation, we intend to engage our members with the comprehensive message of the Bible.

The Carlisle translation? Your pastor wants you to see the Big Picture of God’s Word through the generations.

I’m a map guy. I like to know what is around me . . . in every direction . . . for a long ways! If at all possible, I never return from a destination by simply reversing course. When I first move to a city, I try to take a different route to my office every day for the first month. As you might imagine, my “peculiarities” can be maddening to those who ride with me. On trips involving distance, some riders choose to doze, trusting the driver to know the way. Sounds like church, doesn’t it?

Back to God’s Word: When we examine only a few blocks of the journey at a time by studying verses or chapters, we often miss seeing the map. It’s impossible to “rightly divide” God’s Word in proper understanding if we don’t know “where we are” along the way. God’s Word—all sixty-six books—is actually an incredibly unified story. Written over a period of twelve hundred years by at least forty-three authors, the central character is Jesus Christ. It is His story and He fulfills its meaning.

This year, my morning messages will move sequentially from one key story to the next, encompassing the comprehensive drama that is the Bible. On two very special days, March 25 and August 26, Dr. Jim Denison, Theologian in Residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, will lead us in sweeping, inspirational overviews of the two “testaments.”

Don’t miss the big picture! God has a Word for you—and for the friend you bring with you.