INTRODUCTION

How to Start This Adventure

Here’s how this reading plan will work. We have 10 “to do” items—something practical for you to accomplish, based on a Bible verse, which we will explain to you. You can choose to do each item for a day if you like, but it might be better to spend longer than a day on each activity—like three days, or a week.  

Bottom line, you choose how much time to spend on each activity. Then, move to the next activity. There’s no rule; it’s up to you.  

The best thing about these activities that we will share with you is they never get old. These are the ways everyone who opens the Bible gets to know God and grows in their relationship with him.   

Remember, you’re not working through a list, you’re getting to know a person. Think of these exercises like when you make a bucket list with a best friend. You don’t make that list because you just want to go to the beach or start a band or do something difficult, but because you love that friend and can’t wait to share more experiences with them.

Ready for an adventure? You’ll get out of it what you put into it—and what matters most, friend, is not what you’re accomplishing, but Who you’re getting to know.

The Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, your Creator, knows you better than anyone else (Psalm 139) and wants you to know him too. In fact, he’s more ready to be found by you than you are to seek him. He says to you, “You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). This is a plan to help you seek him.

The Most Important Part

Pay close attention to the Bible verses included. We will list some Bible verses along with each activity. If you have a physical Bible at home, open it up and look up the passages. If not, we have the Bible right here at Bibles.net where you can look them up. And we would love to help you find the right Bible if you need a physical copy—just contact us.

If you want to, look up the Bible passages, but go a step further! Save a verse you encounter that piques your interest as a background on your phone or go old-school and write the passage down somewhere so you can pull it out of your pocket in your spare time. The Bible passages you find in this booklet are the most important part. They’re God’s Words to you.  

Invite a Friend

Consider asking a friend or sibling to join you in doing this reading plan. It might be fun to have someone else to share your thoughts with, read the Bible verses with, and be able to keep you on track, remembering to do each activity. Do you have a friend who would join you in this, a sibling, or a trusted adult you love?

Send them the link to this reading plan and ask them to join you!

BIBLE STUDY

John 1:12-13

But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

(New Living Translation)

1 John 3:1

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

(New International Version)

ACTION STEP

Hear Some Good News Before You Begin

Reading Time: 12 Minutes
The Bible is honest. It tells us the truth: our world is filled with broken relationships. In fact, God was the first to experience relational offense, when the people he created, loved, and blessed distrusted and disobeyed him—they wrongly imagined he was withholding something good from them, so they turned their back on him.  

By default, all of us live in a broken relationship with God and this brokenness will cause the worst suffering in our lives, more than any other, if it’s never healed.   

We were created to know, love, and enjoy God, but we have all sinned against him, believing the lie that he isn’t good and willfully doing what God calls not good. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  

What’s the big deal? You might say. God is so good and pure and just that no evil can dwell in his presence (Psalm 5:4). Wrongdoing makes him angry, because there is no evil in him (Deuteronomy 32:4). He will punish all sin, and one day, he will rid his world of sin entirely. Without God’s intervention, we are destined to spend eternity after we die suffering the just punishment due all our sins in hell. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23). 

But that verse continues, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God made a way so that we wouldn’t have to suffer his wrath—by taking the punishment we deserve upon himself. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV).  

See, isn’t it easy to pull away from people who hurt you? That’s our natural inclination. But God is not like us. He is so loving that he didn’t pull away from us even when we sinned against him. Instead, he moved towards us. He dealt with our sin so that he could us near to him and give us a new relationship with him. 

God came to us in the person of Jesus—God became a man! Jesus suffered in our place, died the death we deserve, and rose from the dead. On the cross, Jesus suffered all of God’s wrath that our sins deserve.  

Do you want to know the wonderful news? The Bible says that eternal life is a gift from God. Jesus pursued you and did everything needed to mend your broken relationship with God. All you must do is receive it! You just have to believe that Jesus really is God and his death really paid for your sins. When you believe in Jesus, he washes you totally clean of your sins, and in God’s sight, your sins are all gone (Psalm 103:12). He trades your sin for his righteousness, and he gives you his Holy Spirit to make you new, give you the power to change, and give you assurance that you belong to God now (2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13-14). Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, died and rose from the dead to bring us back into a loving relationship with God (1 Peter 3:18)!   

When Jesus was alive, one of his followers asked him to show them God the Father. Jesus answered saying that if we know him, we also know the Father. He responded saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 ESV). 

The way to know God the Father is to know his Son, Jesus Christ. If you believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, God will give you the gift of eternal life, which is a new life united to God your Heavenly Father (John 17: 3). And nothing in all the world, not even death can separate you from his love, or make him ever stop loving you as his child (Romans 8:38-39).  

God is the Father that our earthly fathers were created to point to. Sometimes they fail us and it hurts so deeply. But remember, God is totally good—he can’t make mistakes, he will never lie, and his love never lessens or gives up. No matter what kind of father you have on earth, if you trust in Jesus, you have a perfect Father who loves you with an everlasting love (Micah 3:6; Titus 1:2; Isaiah 54:10).  

We suggest listening to the song “Lean Back” by The Worship Initiative when you finish reading. (You can find this song in the “Resources” section of this lesson!)