Friday Pick: YouVersion.com

This week’s app is actually a whole cloud system that has the potential to change your life! (Okay, the app may not, but the content inside is guaranteed to!)

I think it is safe to say that pretty much everyone with an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad who has any interest in the Bible has the “Holy Bible” app, also known as YouVersion put out by LifeChurch.tv. It is an amazing application, if nothing else that you can look up a verse instantly in a mind-boggling amount of versions. Most other Bible applications are limited to one version, but LifeChurch has gone out of the way to pay the royalties to give you free access to more than 100copyrighted versions of scripture.
I’ve used the Bible app for a while, and about a year ago “discovered” a new feature. I had just finished skipping around to whatever book I wanted to read and felt apprehensive about starting a new one, so I started using one of the reading plans provided by YouVersion. You have to create an account (which is free), but with that you can customize a reading plan that will guide you through the Bible or sections of it. And me, I’m a check-list guy. My favorite feature is that both on YouVersion.com and the iPhone App there is a daily check-list to mark off your progress. They have also designed it in such a way that whenever you finish reading a chapter as part of your plan, it will automatically check itself off and mark your progress on it’s cloud, so that the next day when you go to read you know right where you left off. Think of it as a traveling bookmark.

YouVersion offers a ton of other features which you should check out, but one more of my favorites is the reading plan accountability. You know how it is: you get busy, you wake up late and you forget to read your Bible one day, then the next day something comes up, and by day three you’ve forgotten the Bible altogether! Or maybe that’s just me. That is what’s cool about the accountability feature. This will send your friend a notification when you forget a day. Don’t worry, it’s polite! That way by day three your friend can give you a phone call or text to say, “Hey man. Not sure what’s going on, maybe things are busy, but how is your Bible study going lately?” and you can’t lie! It’s great!

Again, the whole thing is free, no strings attached, and I promise that if you pray through your study, God can use this tool to change your life!

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