This book will help followers of Jesus understand and fulfill their life’s purpose based on God’s word. It is dedicated “To all the believers of the word who need and want a closer walk with the Lord day by day.” More than inform you, this will transform you into the image of Christ if you let it (Romans 8:29).

What you’ll need:

• A Bible
• The book, What the Bible Says to the Believer: The Believer’s Personal Handbook [Amazon] [Kindle] [Logos]
• A notebook for writing down your thoughts and questions, and journaling your progress.
• Consider going through the book with a friend or two (study buddies) with whom you can discuss what the book teaches and encourage one another in your response to what you learn.

What to expect:

• About 15-30 minutes a day to read, meditate on, and journal your thoughts, questions, and anything you plan to do in response to what you learned.
• If you’re working with a study buddy or two, an hour or so every week or two to meet with and discuss what you learned and how you responded to your reading. Set reading goals for your next meeting and encourage one another in your responses.
• There are 10 teaching chapters in this book. (Chapter 11 is not part of this study plan – it is an appendix of topics citing Bible verses related to that topic.) Chapters 1-10 are the focus of this course and contain numbered (1, 2, 3, …) articles. In some of the chapters, the articles are grouped by lettered (A, B, C, …) topics.
• Each numbered article is one lesson, no matter how short or long it is.

An illustration to consider:

A guy bought a small tree and planted it in his front yard. The instructions that came with the tree said the tree needed five gallons of water every week. So every Monday he filled a five-gallon bucket with water and poured it on the ground around the tree.

When he did this, he saw that most of the water ran off across the yard. Over the next few weeks, he noticed that the tree was not growing as it should. Instead of growing, it was wilting. Suspecting the tree wasn’t getting all the water it needed, he started pouring one gallon of water around the tree each weekday. He saw that most of the water soaked into the ground around the tree and very little water was lost to the yard. Over the next few weeks, the tree transformed into a strong, healthy, growing tree, all because he let the water soak into the ground around the tree.

In the same way, don’t rush or shortcut the process of this course. Like the man’s tree in his front yard, you need to let the message of each article soak into your heart. It is recommended that you complete the following process with one article a day. Give each article enough time to soak in before the next gallon of wisdom is poured into your heart.

To Get Started:

• Read the “Dear Friend” introduction in the book and look over the table of contents so you understand the scope of this course.
• Each day afterwards:
  • Read one article, preferably in the morning. Look up and read every Bible verse/passage that is referenced but not quoted in the book.
  • Throughout the day, meditate on (think about) the article and write a one-paragraph summary of what it taught.
  • Towards the end of the day, think about the article and your mid-day summary, then write a one-paragraph summary describing how you will respond to the article.