Just as giving you the backstory on how this whole thing came about was appropriate for the subject matter of the very first post, it seems equally fitting that the second post should share the ins and outs of this blog, of all future posts, so without further ado…

You might notice that I don’t intend to include dates on these posts.  There might be exceptions, like if a post is time-sensitive (e.g., commenting and/or giving a biblical perspective on a breaking news event, etc.), but this will be the general rule of thumb.  Why?  Two reasons.

First, because as you’ll see more and more as this journey progresses, the Bible is absolutely and utterly TIMELESS.  Like the precious Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Hebrews 13:8), His inextricable Word, the Bible, NEVER CHANGES.  Proverbs 30:5 makes clear that “EVERY word of God is TESTED”, or literally, is “tried” – tried and found totally blameless and flawless and without fault or error.  It’s perfect because it’s from the perfect God.  It’s a flawless book because its Author is flawless (the Holy Spirit).  It’s the only truly perfect tangible thing in the universe because of how infinitely-closely-tied – indeed, inextricable – it is to the perfect Lord Jesus Christ, “who committed NO SIN” (1 Peter 2:22), “who knew NO SIN” (2 Corinthians 5:21 [much more on this in a future post, one of the most life-changing for me personally, and I GUARANTEE it’ll be the same for you so please stay tuned for that.  Very timely note:  if you’d like to automatically be notified when future posts are published, simply click on the grey “Follow Bible Memory” button in item “3.” in the side panel to the right or at the very bottom of this page!  It’s totally FREE and you can cancel anytime but I’ll go out on a limb and predict that you never will, that these Bible-centered and very practical and sometimes even personal posts will bring such benefit and reward and ongoing joy into your life that the thought of canceling will never even enter your mind but in case I’m wrong about this (UNLIKE the Bible, I myself AM flawed) it’s good you at least have that option!  As I often say, HAPPINESS GUARANTEED!]).  In fact, not only does the Bible, the Word of God, never change (speaking of its meaning and work and effect, not about the seemingly-endless stream of interpretative “versions” which keep popping up) but God will actually curse anyone who would even TRY to! (Proverbs 30:6 but especially Revelation 22:18-19 … GULP!  YIKES!)  It reminds me of and indeed epitomizes the adage “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”  But in this case, “Since it’s perfect, don’t even try!”

[Another aspect of this blog:  as just demonstrated, green print will be used to indicate that it’s an aside, a side thought; this will often though not exclusively be used to further explain a certain word or phrase in a Bible verse so as to make clear that it’s explanatory commentary and not the literal translation.]

But the second and main reason these posts generally won’t be dated is this:  while the Bible, the Word of God, never changes, my insights into such DO since the Lord and the Holy Spirit and the Bible itself (all working together) are constantly refining my thoughts and thinking and perspective on various and sundry matters, always performing its “growing” work (1 Peter 2:2 – “Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word [i.e., the Bible, God’s Word], that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” … much more on this, too, in a future post), so I will reflect that in these posts, i.e., as the Lord and Word bring other verses or additional light on the subject matter to my own mind, in my view it would be downright criminal NOT to share those with you and future readers by adding them to that post.

Also, while my life and by extension this website and blog posts will remain focused on the Person and work and ongoing ministries of the Lord Jesus Christ and under that umbrella on His Word, the Bible, He in His loving sovereignty has brought about (in spite of myself) quite a life story, and has taught me so many aspects of His nature and Word through those life lessons and experiences and journey that I can tell upfront right now that it would be absolutely impossible for me NOT to also share those with you, and I look greatly forward to that, not only because I have a very strong hunch that they will be a big blessing to you as you hear about those and especially all the ways God has used them in my life and I’m sure will in YOUR life as well, but also because it will give Him the opportunity, the wide open door to multiply said usefulness and to further give me the opportunity to fulfill 1 Peter 2:9 and “proclaim the excellencies of Him”!  Win/win/win.  Sounds good to me!

The Lord has graciously given me a number of strengths and talents and skills but I can assure you that anything “mechanical” isn’t one of them!  To put it mildly.  (Those who’ve known me for a while especially in my childhood would probably say that this statement should earn me an Oscar nomination for biggest understatement in a lead role.)  But an amazing thing has happened on the way to memorizing entire books of the Bible:  it has, in a hard-if-not-impossible-to-fully-describe-or-explain kind of way, “activated” to a whole other level the all-sufficient, utterly-comprehensive teaching ministry of/by the Holy Spirit as clearly set forth in 1 John 2:27 – “And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have NO NEED for ANYONE to teach you; but as His anointing (i.e., the Holy Spirit) teaches YOU about ALL THINGS, and is true…”  I love that phrase “no need”.  While I can testify first-hand that there is massive benefit from exposing one’s life and mind to the “accurately-divided” (2 Timothy 2:15) Bible-based teaching and preaching of those whom He has given said gift (Ephesians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 12:28), this verse clearly teaches the importance of being DEPENDENT only and ultimately on the Holy Spirit for this.  (After all, who better to teach us a book than its author!  Makes sense.)  I also love that phrase “all things”.  And that’s the main point of this paragraph, because I find that His teaching and guiding isn’t limited only to the Bible (I can also testify to this first-hand, because He leads and guides me regularly about matters that aren’t specifically addressed in the Bible, several of which are of a modern-day nature which the Bible absolutely addresses and covers in general but sometimes not in specific like whether or which kind of car to drive, whether or where to go for a vacation, things like that.  But thankfully, the Holy Spirit’s teaching and leading truly does cover “all things” just like that verse says.  And for a very recent and pertinent example, like I said, I’m perhaps the LEAST “mechanically-inclined” person on the planet.  Sports?  Almost all of them.  Musical instruments?  A few.  But mechanical things like trying to fix a car or, say, Build a website?  Never!  At least never before.  Because the programmer who was supposed to build this one had some sort of personal/family emergency arise partway through and couldn’t finish and I couldn’t find another programmer willing to finish what a different programmer had started (fully understandable) so would you believe that I asked the Lord and specifically the Holy Spirit to help, to teach me how to do so – I who have been singularly non-mechanical since birth – and indeed I cited that very verse to Him and would you believe that what you’re seeing with your own eyes as you read this and visit this website is the result?  (You’re probably thinking, “Yeah, I actually DO believe that this website was built by someone not mechanically skilled!” but trust me, it was a minor miracle for Him to do that given just how non-mechanical I’ve always been.)

As noted in the “Proof of Authenticity” section on the home page (which you can always get back to with a single click on the BibleMemory.ORG logo at the very top-left of all pages, to the left of the long red bar of different functions/sections of this website), one of the most important things about the decision to launch this whole project/ministries-to-be/website was to demonstrate that it is indeed 100% authentic, not just someone talking about memorizing the entire Bible but actually well on the way (3 of 66, 1/22 of the way there, almost 5% already… and I’m just getting started!) so that’s when I had the idea to demonstrate such by making videos of my reciting those first three books of the Bible from memory.  And the only way I could think of to do so WITHOUT any chance of “cheating” was to go down to my local Walmart and buy one of those sleeping blindfolds.  First, please know that recording myself has always been and shall undoubtedly forevermore be one of my LEAST favorite activities in life.  Second, please know that recording myself while wearing a sleeping blindfold is THE least favorite activity and looks so strange to me BUT a very small price to pay for the perennially important purpose of leaving no doubt whatsoever as to my sincerity about this (not-so-)little project and the progress made so far (without which I never would’ve spent the large amount of time and expense to record those, build this website, etc.).  So I’m going to publish those videos as a blog post after the first few foundational ones but in the future will post them here as I finish memorizing and truly knowing them “by heart” (i.e., in chronological order) but will post them at the very bottom of the home page in their biblical order so it’ll be much easier to find a specific book and to track my overall progress as I seek to become the first person in known human history to MEMORIZE the ENTIRE BIBLE – all 66 books – and then recite His own words back to Him as a (very unique and massive-but-still-not-nearly-enough) love/thank-You gift to the Lord for all He does and Who He is!  Somebody should’ve done this by now, a long time ago, 2,000 years is way too long but I think the Lord Himself will agree, better late than never!  And this gift will not just be from me but from and on behalf of every person who supports this in whatever ways they’re comfortably able!

Lastly (I hope that sound I just heard wasn’t a bunch of people cheering) (all kidding aside, future posts will usually be fairly brief… these first few, not so much since they’re of a foundational nature) and as you’ve probably already noticed, I intend to put specific Bible references in bold print, for the same reason just noted, to keep the Bible front and center on this website and blog and burgeoning ministry as it is in my own mind and life.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that doing so will never bring about failure but failing to do so will.  Besides, apart from the Lord and His indescribably powerful yet precious Word, I am NOTHING; and the more and more I grow in love with Him via the Bible, the more and more I “grow in HATE” for my self/flesh, that part of me which is anti-God and anti-everything-good but which will continue to envelop each and every one of us for the rest of our natural life.  More on this, too, in a future post… another major life-changer I can hardly wait to share with you.

Looks like I have a lot of writing/sharing ahead so stay tuned!
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