"The power of the story IS the story."

I'm at the halfway point of reading through the Bible this year. I've been doing that for only about 5 or six years now. I wish I had not waited so long to start that habit. I don't do it because it wins me favor with God or because it's the right thing for a Christian to do. I do it because I desperately need the examples of history; I desperately need to be reminded; I desperately need to see Christ in the Word every day. This week Tim Challies from Challies.com commented on his own discipline of reading through the Bible in "Saturated with Christ", writing,

"Certain themes are apparent when reading large quantities of the Old Testament books. What becomes clear about God’s relationship to his people is this: they are very sinful and they are very much loved."

Then this morning, I also read "Teach Children the Bible is Not About Them,"  an article by Sally Lloyd Jones, author of The Jesus Storybook Bible. She talks about how we often want to make the Bible about us, what we should be doing, how we should behave, what lesson we should learn. Lloyd Jones then reminds me,

"That the Bible isn’t mainly about me, and what I should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done.
That the Bible is most of all a story — the story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.
That — in spite of everything, no matter what, whatever it cost him — God won’t ever stop loving his children… with a wonderful, Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love."

The Sunday School answer IS the answer- Jesus!
In the "Washed with Tears" (from Mark 14, Luke 7, & John 12), Lloyd Jones tells the story of a sinful woman forgiven.

"This woman knows she's a sinner," Jesus told them, "She knows she'll never be good enough. She knows she needs me to rescue her. That's why she loves me so much."

And that is why I will keep reading, gratefully.