Today's blog is just a long quote from E M Bounds on prayer: I just thought it was an awesome comment.
I purpose to take occasions of praying upon the sight of any church which I may pass, that God may be worshipped there in spirit, and that souls may be saved there; to pray daily for my sick patients and for the patients of other doctors; at my entrance into any home to say, 'May the peace of God abide here'; after hearing a sermon, to pray for a blessing on God's truth, and upon the messenger; upon the sight of a beautiful person to bless God for His creatures, to pray for the beauty of such a one's soul, that God may enrich her with inward graces, and that the outward and inward may correspond; upon the sight of a deformed person, to pray God to give them wholeness of soul, and by and by to give them the beautry of the resurrection.
What a great attitude and practice of prayer!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Christ Richly Dwelling in Me
Colossians 3:16 is not a suggestion. Rather it is a command to let the Word of Christ dwell in us, and not just dwell but dwell richly. It is to be the basis for our speech to one another: speaking in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs...how do we do this if the Word is not actually in us. And how is it in us? What does this mean practically?
How many of us can close our eyes and meditate on a passage of scripture because it is in our hearts? And yet in passage after passage in the Old and New Testaments this is exactly what we are told to do. Think about this statement of Jesus: He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me...John 14:21
One of those very clear commands is to hide God's word in our hearts, to mediate, ruminate, discuss and let it permeate our lives and inform our every decision. see Joshua 1:8, Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Psalm 1, Psalm 119:97-105 and many more). How do we abide in Him and have Him abide in us without knowing His word? It seems to be the core basis of our spiritual lives? And yet we ignore it in practice.
I don't mean this in a legalistic, rote sense. The one who knows the most verses may be the least spiritual. I ahve heard all the arguments: "knowledge puffeth up"etc. Yet the commands are there over and over. We are disobedient if we are not hiding God's word in our hearts.
One of the foremost authorities on spiritual growth today is Dallas Willard. He calls Bible memorization the #1 most important spiritual discipline over even prayer. Often the scripture in our hearts is the basis for our prayers.
If we love Him we should love His revealed word and want to thoroughly learn it so as to grow closer and closer to Him. I challenge you to start now. Don't wait. Choose and passage and begin to learn it...and meditate on it. And ask God to open it up and apply it to your life.
How many of us can close our eyes and meditate on a passage of scripture because it is in our hearts? And yet in passage after passage in the Old and New Testaments this is exactly what we are told to do. Think about this statement of Jesus: He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me...John 14:21
One of those very clear commands is to hide God's word in our hearts, to mediate, ruminate, discuss and let it permeate our lives and inform our every decision. see Joshua 1:8, Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Psalm 1, Psalm 119:97-105 and many more). How do we abide in Him and have Him abide in us without knowing His word? It seems to be the core basis of our spiritual lives? And yet we ignore it in practice.
I don't mean this in a legalistic, rote sense. The one who knows the most verses may be the least spiritual. I ahve heard all the arguments: "knowledge puffeth up"etc. Yet the commands are there over and over. We are disobedient if we are not hiding God's word in our hearts.
One of the foremost authorities on spiritual growth today is Dallas Willard. He calls Bible memorization the #1 most important spiritual discipline over even prayer. Often the scripture in our hearts is the basis for our prayers.
If we love Him we should love His revealed word and want to thoroughly learn it so as to grow closer and closer to Him. I challenge you to start now. Don't wait. Choose and passage and begin to learn it...and meditate on it. And ask God to open it up and apply it to your life.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Most Important Thing
Dallas Willard calls the memorization of Scripture the most important of all the spiritual disciplines for a disciple of Christ who wants with all his/her heart to grow in Chrislikeness.
The goal of this blog will be to motivate, educate and continually prod believers all over the world to get back to basics. Much like the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi used to do at the beginning of every spring training, we are going to hold up the Bible and say, "This is God's Word".
As such, how can we NOT hide it in our hearts; meditate on it continually and think and discuss and apply it to our lives in every way we can possibly imagine.
Hope you will follow. I am going to try to blog daily. But don't just read, nod and agree. Do something about it. Start memorizing now. Go to http://www.biblememorycoins.com/ to see our innovative and hopefully helpful system. Email us at BibleMemoryCoins@gmail.com
The goal of this blog will be to motivate, educate and continually prod believers all over the world to get back to basics. Much like the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi used to do at the beginning of every spring training, we are going to hold up the Bible and say, "This is God's Word".
As such, how can we NOT hide it in our hearts; meditate on it continually and think and discuss and apply it to our lives in every way we can possibly imagine.
Hope you will follow. I am going to try to blog daily. But don't just read, nod and agree. Do something about it. Start memorizing now. Go to http://www.biblememorycoins.com/ to see our innovative and hopefully helpful system. Email us at BibleMemoryCoins@gmail.com
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