This year is flying by! I can hardly believe that March is right around the corner. March is an exciting month for me and it kicks off with the 2020 Enjoy God’s Word Conference, March 5-7.
I LOVE this conference. It is an amazing time of diving into God’s Word with some stellar Bible teachers amidst a super-sweet Bible-girl community. Full of equipping and encouragement, we are going to walk away from this conference ready to enjoy God’s Word more and more everyday.
A stellar event like this held at a conference center would be at least $170 a ticket. On top of that, you have to drive or buy a plane ticket to get there, pay for a hotel room and expensive meals for the three days you’re away from home.
If you attend the 2020 online conference you get access to 12 stellar sessions March 5-6th, LIVE interaction with each speaker in our conference community group, a brand new How to Spend Time with God eCourse, plus a LIVE workshop on March 7th with me and Lara Williams geared toward helping you take your next step in your relationship with God. If you grab a ticket to the conference by 2/22 not only will you receive all the training and encouragement from the conference, but you will also get this stunning art print from Carmen Miller of The Biblical Creative!
Isn’t it gorgeous?! You can use it as a background image for your digital devices and/or print it out and place it in your favorite frame in hang in your hallway. I LOVE hanging Scripture in my home.
Big Book Bundle Giveaway Celebration
As if this isn’t enough, we’re celebrating with a giveaway! Many of our AMAZING speakers have contributed to this HUGE pack of goodies.
Help us spread the word about the conference for a chance to win some amazing books, Bible studies, and devotionals + a $20 coupon to the Bible Study Hub shop. Who’s excited?!?
It’s a downright fight for me to remember the reason for the season: celebrating Emmanuel, God with us. Amidst (what seems like) endless parties, shopping lists, and family gatherings, the season gearing up to Christmas Day is typically rushed and stressful. Beyond this busyness is a constant temptation to indulge. From grandma’s cooking to the latest and greatest gadget, the inclination of my heart and flesh to be gratified through toys and treats is given continual opportunity to think about self. My wants. My wishes. My will.
So, yes, busyness is a problem. Excessiveness and self-gratification, too. But the biggest hurdle in the way of celebrating and honoring Christ this Christmas is not primarily in the external distractions—it’s in my propensity to want what I want, how I want it, when I want it. I forget that life is not all about me. Christmas surely isn’t either. I must be intentional to remember that Christmas is, indeed, about Christ. It’s not primarily about celebrating time with family, making memories for the children in our lives, or showing love through gift-giving. Christmas is a celebration of Christ our Savior.
The actions you and I take during this Christmas season (and every other day of the year) are important. We exist to worship God. Yes, God has given us good gifts to enjoy, family to love, and a community to serve. But every party we attend, conversation we engage, and shopping trip we make ought to have an attitude of worship as the undercurrent. A desire to honor and glorify the God who sent His only Son for us should permeate our days. As we enter this Christmas season, let’s do so with a view toward worship and turn our hearts toward the glad tidings the coming of Christ bring to our souls.
p.s. If you are looking for a study to help you to just that—point your heart toward the significance of the coming of Christ, join me for this 12-day journey. Let’s set our gaze on Christ this Christmas!
Christmas Bible Study
December is buuuuuusy. This Christmas study will help you remember the reason for the season through a Christmas hymn and two timely passages a day.
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Ok, so this in no way is going to be able to be comprehensive, but I get asked all the time about my favorite tools for Bible study, so here is my attempt to round up those resources into one place!
The ESV Study Bible
A solid study Bible is an excellent first step toward better Bible study. My favorite study Bible is the ESV Study Bible. I’ve had mine for at least a decade AND it came with the e-version which I use at least weekly. I love having this amazing resource at my fingertips! Read more about my the best Study Bible I own here.
I looooooove this Bible. I put off buying it for a full year, because it is certainly an investment. But I have not had one ounce of buyer’s remorse! I used birthday money and a coupon to grab it from DaySpring. It is also available on Amazon.Full Disclosure: At no additional cost to you, I earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase. Thanks for your support! I wish I had purchased it sooner! I really, truly love everything about it.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Galatians 2:20-21
Why we need to study the book of Galatians
The book of Galatians is filled with truths about the gospel—the good news of what Jesus has done to redeem us so that we can enjoy His presence for eternity. At first glance, it may seem that talk of circumcision and the Law is not applicable to us, but the motivations and mistakes hidden behind the traps the churches in Galatia found themselves in, also abound today.
Here is an excerpt from the Galatians Study Pack, where we study Galatians together. I have daily coaching videos to help you start out on the right foot and understand the cultural background behind the words we see on the page. Indeed, the book of Galatians holds much for each of us today.
One huge key to living a Christian life
So if you and I are trying to become right by any other means than depending on Christ righteousness on our behalf, we are denying the crucifixion of Christ. We are saying, “Jesus what you did on the cross was pretty awesome but I’ll take it from here because I gotta get I gotta clean myself up.”
We gotta quit this notion that I gotta clean myself up before I can come to Christ. We’re never ever ever gonna be able to clean ourselves up enough to come to Christ. Ever.
We come to Christ because we are broken.
We come to Christ because we are dirty.
We come to Christ because we are unrighteous.
And what does He gives us? He gives us grace. He gives us mercy and he gives us our very righteousness.
Go look up 2 Corinthians 5:20. It says that, “He made Him—Jesus—who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of Christ.”
He takes on our sins and then gives us His perfect righteousness. That is the only way to true justification. That is the only way to true righteousness. It is a gift that is given to us. It is not earned.
Then, when we really get that we have been given the righteousness of Christ, it is amazing motivation to worship and honor the sacrifice of Christ with my life.
Because God has made me righteous, I choose to live a righteous life.
Because God has made me perfect, I choose to walk in holiness.
I mess it up all the time but when I mess up, I have to turn right back and keep my eyes on Jesus and remember that he is given me righteousness and then it fuels me right again to continue in righteous living.
See what’s going on here is that we have this internal, inward foundational truths about us as Christians. Jesus has made me righteous. Jesus has made you righteous. If you have trusted him for salvation, if you trusted him to take care of your sin problem, he’s done it. He’s taking care of your sin problem. Your sin has been paid for and now you have His righteousness. That is true of who you are at the deepest part of who you are. You are righteous.
And so our work here on earth is sanctification. We get to join in what God is doing to make those inward truths become external reality so that over time I look more and more like Jesus. That is the working out of our salvation.
We already have salvation. It is within us. We have been given everything we need to live a godly life. We get to spend the rest of our life working those truths out since they become more and more and more true of our everyday living.
You can access the rest of this teaching video and jump into the Galatians Bible study pack. Through this customizable Bible study through Galatians, you will better understand the gospel and the freedom we have in Christ. Whether you are brand new to Bible study, or a seasoned veteran, this Bible study pack will help you take your next step toward better Bible study—even if you have a busy schedule. All from the comfort of your own home!
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The Bible is not an easy read. Yet so many Christians approach the Bible as if they ought to be experts at what it contains. They believe that just by nature of being a Christian, Bible study should come naturally to them. I believed this lie for the longest time. I’m not sure I would have ever vocalized it as such, but my experience proved it. Instead of being a source of joy and delight, opening God’s Word was an activity filled with guilt and failure. It paralyzed me and left me feeling less-than for not having the amazing “quiet times” everyone else around me seemed to be having.
If you find yourself scratching your head when it comes time for Bible study, know that you are NOT alone. In fact, you are probably in the majority. But just because you’re in that boat doesn’t mean you have to stay there. The Bible is the primary way we can know God and the purpose He has for our lives. It is God’s revelation to us, His very words which tell us who He is and who we are because of Christ. It is a gift of grace, a treat to be enjoyed and savored. The Bible is filled with the spiritual nourishment our souls crave.
Here are 8 actions to take when you have no idea what you are reading:
1. PRAY.
2. ZOOM OUT AND GET THE BIG PICTURE.
3. BE SURE YOU ARE ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.
4. PHONE A FRIEND.
5. READ A COMMENTARY AND LISTEN TO A SERMON ON THE PASSAGE.
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I thought it would be fun to hear from YOU! I created these fun “stories” images you can upload and personalize on Facebook and/or Instagram stories. To download the images you can “drag and drop” them to your desktop or “tap and hold” to save to your device.
Be sure to use #enjoygodsword and tag me @thekatieorr and @enjoygodsword so I can see what you share!
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Lest I think I’ve ever “arrived,” it takes only a moment of stress to show me how far removed I am from biblical love. My everyday moments more often resemble lovelessness rather than the definition of biblical love. Over and over again I insist on my own way as I bark out commands in haste to my kids or speak short words to my husband and leave no room for doubt that I’m irritated. “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless” (James 1:26 ESV).
Impatience, at its core, is a love issue. The Greek word used in 1 Corinthians 13:4 for “patient”(makrothumeō) has the connotation of being slow to act against wrongdoing. Whereas the original word for kind has a meaning of responding with a mild demeanor. These are reactive words.
The challenge here is not to go out and be more patient and kind. Instead, love is displayed in our response to the offenses of others. When someone intentionally wrongs me or is just incredibly annoying, my response reveals love (or hate). I don’t need to look far to find an occasion to love. I am given continual opportunities to love each and every day.
“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” (Matthew 12:34).
God loved me so I can show love. “Not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19). God extended me mercy so I can extend mercy. God is patient with me so I can be patient with others. Once again, we have our example of love in our Savior. God’s love for His people is patient. My sin—and yours—is a continual offense to a holy God. Yet, He responded to our offensive actions toward Him with love. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient (makrothumeō) toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Love is evidenced in our responses to others. All too often, when we want to make changes in our lives, we go overboard looking for new things to help us in our journey. In our efforts to be intentional, we skip right over the simplest solution. Truth is, we already know what to do. We don’t have to look far for ways to show love to others. Every moment we have with the people God has planted us next to is an opportunity to love. From the next-door neighbor we rarely speak to, to the girl at work who drives us crazy, to the friends and family closest to us. As we choose to stay near to God and keep in step with His Spirit, He will faithfully enable us to love others and bear witness to the love we ourselves have experienced.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
PRAY THIS WITH ME: God, I praise You for your extravagant love! I deserve judgment, yet You have lavished Your love on me. Jesus, thank You for taking the wrath of my sin so that I can experience the favor of my Creator. Spirit, enable me to respond with extravagant, patient, and kind love with every offense I face today.
This is an excerpt from Everyday Love — a women’s Bible study on love. This easy-to-use, four-week Bible study will help you discover how your life can bear witness to God’s purpose. In as few as 15 minutes a day, you will explore the Book of 1 Corinthians 13 and the deeper truths about God’s love for you and others.
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The threat of my house catching on fire is haunting. Fire can spread quickly and in unpredictable ways, bringing a great potential for destruction. Though fire can be erratic, we do know there are three things needed for a fire to burn: heat, oxygen, and fuel. In light of this, safety experts suggest keeping a fire blanket handy at home, especially for small kitchen fires. A fire blanket is a nonflammable covering used to contain a small fire from getting out of control. It’s designed to contain the fire by preventing oxygen access, thus smothering the fire into submission. The blanket provides a covering in order to suffocate the flames.
You and I have fires that pop up everyday, and they are (hopefully!) not in our kitchen. Every wrongdoing we experience is an ember, and we have an opportunity to smother it immediately or allow it to catch into a smoldering wildfire. Each insult, injury, or inconsideration encountered is a chance to cover the offender in love. When we obsess over the attacking flame on our doorstep we breathe life into it and allow it to burn bright, instead of immediately smothering the offense with love.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7)
Love covers. It quickly blows out the flame of irritability, resentment, and pride. Again and again and again. It suffers long toward every ember that tempts to take over. Love is shown in the response we make toward wrongdoing. We don’t need to go out looking for fires to put out, we each have enough to go around. Fires pop up every day, and in those moments when we begin to feel the heat, we have a choice to feed the fire or smother it into submission.
“I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,” (Isaiah 61:10).
Jesus smothered our sin into submission, then He gifted us His righteousness. This act of love covered over you and me in a way we cannot fully comprehend on this side of eternity. And as we attempt to grasp the reality of Christ’s covering, let’s move toward extending a covering of love to those around us as extravagantly as Christ did for us.
PRAY THIS WITH ME: Jesus, I praise You for Your covering of grace and forgiveness. Never let me forget what You have saved me from. Help me to see the fires that need covering and enable me to douse them with love today.
This is an excerpt from Everyday Love — a women’s Bible study on love. This easy-to-use, four-week Bible study will help you discover how your life can bear witness to God’s purpose. In as few as 15 minutes a day, you will explore the Book of 1 Corinthians 13 and the deeper truths about God’s love for you and others.
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When I starting seeing that the Word of God is something to enjoy instead of something to do—something to achieve—that was another place in my life that really propelled me forward spiritually.
Why is it important to study the Bible? In this video, I explain how Bible study affects every part of our life, but most importantly, our view of God.
Watch the video and catch the full transcripts over at LifeWay Voices.
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I’m a head-first-diver. When I decide I want to do something, I set my mind to it … and go. Sometimes this approach works, sometimes it doesn’t. There are some cases that you just need to dive in and see where things take you. There are others that a bit of planning and foresight will go a long way. Bible study is one of the latter.
It’s important to recognize that Bible study is a journey and every time we open our Bibles, we lay another layer down for the step ahead. And since it is a journey it is oh-so-helpful to understand where we are and where we are going.
Step 1. Place yourself on the Bible Study Boulevard
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
1 Peter 2:2–3 ESV
We all start out on the left—a Bible Study Beginner. Peter tells us to be like babes who long for the milk that will enable us to grow up. Our spiritual life is just like our physical life. In order to grow, we must take in nourishment. The rate of our spiritual growth is in direct correlation to the amount of “milk” we take in.
No Bible, no growth. A little bit of Bible, a little bit of growth.
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
2 Timothy 2:15 ESV
Here we have the end goal when it comes to our ability to study the Bible: an accurate handler of the Bible. This means that we ought to be able to open the Bible, read it, study it, figure out what it means (interpret), and walk forward in worship of the God who wrote it (apply it). There is a biblical expectation that all who come to Christ also become accurate handlers. All Christians eventually should be able to eat the meat.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
Hebrews 5:12–13 ESV
This is not meant to be a guilt trip, but a reality check—so that we can correctly place ourselves on the Bible Study Boulevard. Once we know where we are, then we can choose the right next step.
ASSIGNMENT: Take a moment in honest evaluation of where you are at on the Bible Study Boulevard. Pick a “hex” above, and take a mental note.
Step 2: Know where to put your primary focus
Build the Habit —> Gain Understanding —> Worship God
Build the Habit
When we are first starting out in our Bible study journey, we need to focus on building the habit. Start small and doable. Get the quick win and build on that success. Place your energies on showing up. This doesn’t mean that you won’t gain any understanding—you will—but you need to first put your best effort toward getting into a rhythm of regularly opening your Bible.
Gain Understanding
Once spending time in the Bible has begun to become routine, you are ready to move on and take the next baby step toward understanding the Bible. Now you can start using those brain cells to focus more about what you are reading. You can flex those Bible study muscles and begin learning how to accurately handle the words in the Bible.
Worship God
All along the way, you are worshiping God. You don’t have to wait until you know everything about the Bible and perfectly live it out before you can worship God with your life. (Spoiler alert) You never will! The depths of the Bible can be mined for a lifetime. And not one of us will ever be able to obey it perfectly. (Good news is, Jesus did on our behalf!) However, every intentional step you take along the way is one that says, “God, I want you more than ________.” And as you gain understanding, you get to see God more and more clearly. As you get a better and brighter view of who God is and what His best plan is for your life, you will naturally want to respond in obedient worship.
ASSIGNMENT: With where you are in mind, decide if you need to focus primarily on HABIT or UNDERSTANDING. Now we can move on to choosing the right next Bible study baby step for you.
Step 3. Pick the right approach for you
This is where things get exciting!! Now that you know where you need to focus, you can put together a plan. I’ve laid out all the products I have available so you can see where they are on the boulevard. Each is designed to help prepare and propel you forward to the next Bible study baby step.
Choose by skill level
Completely out of the habit? Never read more than a few verses at a time? —> Pick a reading plan.
Completed at least a few weeks in a row of Bible reading? Studied the Bible before but it’s been a while? —> Start with a reading plan, then add FLEX 3 as you feel ready to take the next step.
In a great routine of Bible reading and ready for a challenge? —> Start off with FLEX 3 and move on to FLEX 6 once you get the hang of things.
Tried out a few Bible study tools and ready for more? —> Start with FLEX 9 or even the FOCUSed15 method.
These decision-making suggestions are based primarily on skill. But you can also make your choice by the time you have available that day.
Choose by time available
Only have a moment available today? —> Read a few verses. Then thank God for what you read.
Have a few minutes to spare? —> Study a few verses (2-4) with the FLEX 3 layers.
Have several minutes? —> Study several verses (5-7) using FLEX 6.
Have 10 minutes today? —> FLEX 9 on 9 verses or so.
Have 15 minutes or more? —> Go through the FOCUSed15 study steps on a few verses (3-5).
Of course, there are loads of other reading plans out there and Bible study tools besides these. Go out there and try out as many as you can. We all learn differently, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach to Bible study. All of my products are build to help you toward the goal of being able to rightly divide the Bible on your own. However, there are some really, really awesome Bible studies out there that are geared primarily toward understanding. I’ve completed dozens of them and grew tremendously from them. You may not learn how to study your Bible, but you will gain LOADS of understanding on the topic or the book it teaches on. There is a place for both!
ASSIGNMENT: Chose an approach and prepare for your next step. Here are a few resources you might find helpful.
Now all this is cool info, but it all means nothing if we don’t move forward! To recap, here is what we’ve covered:
Place yourself on the Bible Study Boulevard.
Know where to put your primary focus. (Habit? Understanding?)
Pick the right approach for you and prepare for your next step.
Now, it’s time to dive in. Start now. Determine your next baby-step and take it!
I’m super-duper-excited about a new product I’ve created with all of this in mind. The Proverbs Bible Study Pack allows for all of the above beginner steps. So whether you are brand new to Bible study, or have a bit of experience under your belt, you can utilize this pack.
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