We are supporting and affiliated with this new society aiming to raise Biblical literacy and the practice of Bible memorization, especially among young people. Please comment your thoughts and support.
There is a movement in the United States today to get back to basics, back to a time when integrity, whether it be fiscal, political, or spiritual, meant something. Religiously we might call it "that old time religion." I can remember Sunday School in junior high school when we had contests to memorize Bible verses. In 4th grade if we memorized 100 verses word perfect we received an automatic 'A' in Bible (you can tell I went to a Christian school).
Sadly, I was speaking to one of my best friends from college a few months ago (he now teaches at Westmont College) and he said virtually none of his students memorize scripture. This is at one of our premiere Christian colleges! It saddens and almost disheartens me. in college a group of 8 of us met every week to review the full chapter we had memorized that week.
Billy Graham says, "I am convinced that one of the greatest things we can do is to memorize Scripture." Billy Graham, Personal Thoughts of a Public Man p. 88
Dallas Willard, author of Divine Conspiracy and professor of Philosophy at USC, wrote, “Bible memorization is absolutely fundamental to spiritual formation. If I had to choose between all the disciplines of the spiritual life, I would choose Bible memorization, because it is a fundamental way of filling our minds with what it needs.
Rick Warren of The Purpose Driven Life, says "Scripture memory is a habit that most Christians have never even tried, but getting your members to hide God's word in their hearts brings personal revival and renewal. It is the single most important thing I have ever done in my spiritual life."
Our society has been formed for the purpose of driving, leading, encouraging Christians to get back to the fundamental basic core spiritual exercise of memorizing passages and verses of the Bible. We are affiliated with and supportive of the misson of Bible Memory Coins (http://www.biblememorycoins.com/). Through seminars, publications, e-newsletters and teaching conferences we hope to bring a renewed commitment hiding God's word in our hearts leading to living out His word in our lives. In every facet of our lives, we hope to stimulate letting "the word of Christ richly dwell in you" Colossians 3:16.
If most of the leading pastors and Christian thinkers of our time believe this to be the one critical discipline, I can't think of a better core truth and practice to build a society around. Join us by registering and sending your dues. In return we will send you a choice of 2 Christian classic books and our training booklet "Hidden In My Heart" on how and why to memorize scripture. A monthly e-newsletter on the topic of memorizing and meditating on God's word will be sent to each member as well as updates on coming seminars and new publications.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Why Is It So Hard to Pray?
Since we believe that praying is communicating with, "hanging out with" the most powerful purely loving and creative, can I say "interesting" being in the universe, why are we so reluctant and inconsistent in our prayer life? We have before us at any time the opportunity, as He Himself allows, to move the Being (in some way) Who spoke and created a world so vast we can hardly imagine it. I have started at a remedial level to study astronomy and I am just in awe most of the time.
When you add to this some of the shocking statements re prayer from the Bible, and the plainspoken way God makes it clear His desire to commune and fellowship and develop relationship with us, why is it so hard to pray?
Lack of faith? Let's face it, if you truly believed Bill Gates was your best friend and had written you a blank check, you would be acting on it. I don't mean to compare God's promises to a blank check (or to Bill Gates) but part of that is a good analogy.
I love the old English pastor J Sidlow Baxter's writings and sermons. he said,
"Most of us need to lift our prayer life from the tyranny of our moods."
His other quote on prayer is one of my favorites: "Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers." We are never so powerful and influential as when we are on our knees.
Lewis tells the story (I think in Letters to Malcolm) of a time when he planned to go to London for some business and planned to stop in at his barber's. Then the reason for going to London fell through but he kept sensing God telling him to go ahead to the barber's. Now Lewis never drove so this involved a taxi and expense, but he went ahead and made the trip to his barber. As he walked in, his barber, who was a Christian, said, "Oh, Jack (Lewis was called 'Jack' by friends) I was praying you would come in today." Lewis' comment was, "It awes me.'
Are you in awe of your prayer life and your God?
When you add to this some of the shocking statements re prayer from the Bible, and the plainspoken way God makes it clear His desire to commune and fellowship and develop relationship with us, why is it so hard to pray?
Lack of faith? Let's face it, if you truly believed Bill Gates was your best friend and had written you a blank check, you would be acting on it. I don't mean to compare God's promises to a blank check (or to Bill Gates) but part of that is a good analogy.
I love the old English pastor J Sidlow Baxter's writings and sermons. he said,
"Most of us need to lift our prayer life from the tyranny of our moods."
His other quote on prayer is one of my favorites: "Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers." We are never so powerful and influential as when we are on our knees.
Lewis tells the story (I think in Letters to Malcolm) of a time when he planned to go to London for some business and planned to stop in at his barber's. Then the reason for going to London fell through but he kept sensing God telling him to go ahead to the barber's. Now Lewis never drove so this involved a taxi and expense, but he went ahead and made the trip to his barber. As he walked in, his barber, who was a Christian, said, "Oh, Jack (Lewis was called 'Jack' by friends) I was praying you would come in today." Lewis' comment was, "It awes me.'
Are you in awe of your prayer life and your God?
Monday, July 25, 2011
10,000 Ages from Now
Jonathan Edwards is considered by many to be the greatest mind America has ever produced. Many only know him as the preacher of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" and that is sad. Among many he has influenced, current bestselling author and preacher John Piper considers him to be one of just a few major influences in his life.
This quote from Edwards' journals has changed my perspective on life the past few weeks. I save it on my phone and read it regularly as a reminder.
Resolve to live with all my might while I do live and as I shall wish I had done 10,000 ages hence.
Not 10,000 days from now or even 10,000 years...but 10,000 ages...the short life we live--"all flesh is like grass..the grass withers, the flower falls off"--is truly nothing compared to the eternity that awaits us. To quote a Schaeffer title: How Shall We Then Live?
As Paul writes in Philippians, "our citizenship is in heaven". The question is, how does this affect our life here and now? It should revolutionize it. All we do should be in light of eternity, the certainty we shall always be with God, the knowledge that "weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning." "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day" and it is that full day that we have to look forward to. And it comes quickly.
I close with a favorite story about two elderly missionaries coming home after 30 years of faithful service on the mission field. As their ship pulls into the New York harbor they see hundreds of people cheering and waving flags, and their hearts are warmed that their church and friends have remembered them. To their dismay and disappointment when they disembark they find the cheering crowd is for a celebrity and noone has shown up to welcome them. The husband remarks on this with discouragement to his wife. He talks about how they been faithful and now at last we come home to...nothing. The much wiser wife turns to her husband and says softly, "That is because we are not home yet."
How true. "Everyone who has this HOPE fixed on him purifies himself as he is pure."
This quote from Edwards' journals has changed my perspective on life the past few weeks. I save it on my phone and read it regularly as a reminder.
Resolve to live with all my might while I do live and as I shall wish I had done 10,000 ages hence.
Not 10,000 days from now or even 10,000 years...but 10,000 ages...the short life we live--"all flesh is like grass..the grass withers, the flower falls off"--is truly nothing compared to the eternity that awaits us. To quote a Schaeffer title: How Shall We Then Live?
As Paul writes in Philippians, "our citizenship is in heaven". The question is, how does this affect our life here and now? It should revolutionize it. All we do should be in light of eternity, the certainty we shall always be with God, the knowledge that "weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning." "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day" and it is that full day that we have to look forward to. And it comes quickly.
I close with a favorite story about two elderly missionaries coming home after 30 years of faithful service on the mission field. As their ship pulls into the New York harbor they see hundreds of people cheering and waving flags, and their hearts are warmed that their church and friends have remembered them. To their dismay and disappointment when they disembark they find the cheering crowd is for a celebrity and noone has shown up to welcome them. The husband remarks on this with discouragement to his wife. He talks about how they been faithful and now at last we come home to...nothing. The much wiser wife turns to her husband and says softly, "That is because we are not home yet."
How true. "Everyone who has this HOPE fixed on him purifies himself as he is pure."
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wholeness of Soul
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!
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!
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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