Hi there, my spiritual family,
I hope you are having a great week this week. I was able to get away for a few days to visit my mom in Revelstoke. It has been a good time of rest and reflection.
Last week, I talked about the importance of reading God’s Word and I specifically highlighted journaling. This week, I want to continue on the theme of the importance of having God’s Word in your heart, but I’d like to focus on memorizing.
If you were to gather a panel of athletes made up of a runner, a swimmer, a weightlifter, and a karate instructor and asked them if physical fitness and exercise were important, I am positive that all of them would answer the same.
“Of course physical fitness and exercise are important,” they would say.
But if you were to ask them which type of training is the best, I would venture to say that their answers would all be very different. They would each talk about the benefits of their particular sport with passion and conviction, extolling the unique benefits their discipline produces. And they would all be right…for themselves. They would all have true and viable reasons why their chosen fitness program is great. After all, that is why they are doing what they are doing.
In the same way, if you were to ask me if spiritual training and discipline for the purpose of spiritual health is important, I would answer with a resounding yes. It is important, no matter what style works best for you. Some people have chosen to read the Bible cover to cover, year after year. That is a fantastic spiritual discipline. Others read devotionally and journal what they hear God saying to them. Still others pour over commentaries and Bible dictionaries to exegete correctly a particular passage of scripture. All of these are great ways to grow spiritually, and “spiritual cross-training” is highly recommended. For me, scripture memory is one of my primary ways that I grow spiritually…and I love it.
There are a few reasons why I think scripture memory is one of the best ways to know God’s Word.
First, it creates INTRINSIC MEDITATION. Because it takes me so long to learn a passage, I have to repeat it many, many times. This forces me to be thinking about the passage a lot. And that is what meditation is; it is mulling over a passage many times.
Second, scripture memory makes the Bible ULTIMATELY ACCESSIBLE. It is with me wherever I go and whatever I am doing. It has been with me during dialysis and operations, it is with me as I go to sleep, it is with me when I am driving in the car. It is always there!
Third, it truly comes alive as the LIVING WORD. The more I meditate and rehearse a passage, the more alive it becomes. It’s like it goes 3-D on me. I am in the scene, looking around, hearing the different people’s voices. I love it!
Fourth, it greatly encourages TRANSFORMATIVE THINKING. Again, because I spend so much time trying to learn the passage, it really begins to shape the way I think. I have been memorizing the book of John for just over a year now (only four years to go!). Almost every day I am rehearsing all the verses that I know from that book (just into chapter six now). There have already been so many things that I think differently about in the last year than I did before. Not only that, but when I am rehearsing scripture, I am not thinking some of the dumb thoughts that I can be prone to think. I am truly being transformed.
As you can tell, I love memorizing scripture and I wish everyone (you included) would join me. Go slow and steady like me and it is amazing how God’s Word will come alive in you!
This Sunday will be the final installment in our IMPACT series, and I am really pumped about it. We will be doing things a bit differently this Sunday. We will have more time for worship in song as well as some creative ways you can respond to Jesus with the goal of being impacted by Him. I can’t wait to be a part of things this Sunday. I am praying that the Spirit of Christ will fall fresh on us!
I hope you have a great weekend, and we will see you on Sunday!
I love being your pastor.
Pastor Tim