Many people will (mistakenly) think that anyone who memorizes a huge amount of Scripture must be some sort of “super saint”. I have this to say about that, and that’s this: Super saint? NO I AIN’T! Not even close. (To echo the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:18, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh”.) In fact, just the opposite of their notion is true, because the more of the Bible I memorize, the more I realize how utterly and entirely sinful I am in and of myself, in my flesh. You see, as Psalm 19:7-8 clearly states, the Bible – and especially memorizing the Bible – “enlightens the eyes”. It breaks through the blindness which besets us from birth and opens one’s eyes. To the truth and existence and nature and will of God. To the nature and detrimental, destructive, and indeed deadly consequences of sin (Romans 6:23). And to the nature of man. Our flesh. Our fallacy. Our tendencies. Why we do what we do. Why we do what we should not and not do what we should! (Romans 7:19) So you can see why I say that the more Scripture one memorizes, the more one will see the righteousness of God and the sinfulness of oneself, of the flesh, to the extent that I can honestly say that I’m the BIGGEST SINNER I know, I’m the biggest sinner I’ve EVER known, and I’m probably the biggest sinner YOU’VE ever known, at least that’s how I see it, that’s my (believe it or not blissful) Bible-borne perspective.
But thankfully Psalm 19:7-8 doesn’t stop there! Because it’s just as clear that the Bible also “restores the soul” and “makes wise the simple” and “rejoices the heart”! It’s not just a win, not just a home run, memorizing and reciting Scripture is a GRAND SLAM! And not just spiritually, but humanly… not just in the spiritual realm, but in the human realm, not just in the life to come but also this present life (1 Timothy 4:8). And I can testify from firsthand experience that all of this is absolutely true: so long as I’m doing so on a regular basis, my spirit remains utterly joyful, rarely ever leaving the proverbial “cloud nine”. I find that I see things that many others don’t (heightened insight produced by the Word within). And I find that my heart remains filled with and focused on the things above, not on the things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2), not on the things which are seen, but unseen, not the things which are temporal but eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18) – what a wonderful way to go through life! And what’s amazing is that I’m just at the START this journey of memorizing the entire Bible, after which the Lord is leading me to turn this into a full-fledged, full-speed-ahead, full-time ministry – here’s the plan…
PHASE 1: Memorize the ENTIRE Bible as a “love/thank You” gift back to Him and also to prove, to demonstrate to the world the utter and tangible power and benefits of the ingested (memorized) Word of God! And for the first few months to highlight the need and leave room for the Lord to lead like-minded Bible-loving believers to support this in whatever ways they’re able and willing and excited to do so when learning about this historic endeavor and opportunity.
PHASE 2: After memorizing all or at least the vast majority of the New Testament, the next step will commence and entail totally changing the emphasis of this website from seeking one-time and especially Monthly Partners so as to get and keep this going to just giving back by meeting the needs of others, to “fulfill the law of Christ” by “bearing the burdens of others” (Galatians 6:2) and “serving one another” (Galatians 5:13; 1 Peter 4:10).
Specifically, I will make myself available all throughout the day virtually every day so anyone will be able to:
- Ask and receive Bible-based answers to their questions about the Bible itself, God, sin, human nature, and whatever else might be on their hearts at any given time. Literally for the rest of my or their lives, they will have a ready and waiting friend and/or listening ear and/or shoulder to cry on according to their need at the time. Without reservation, and without judgment.
- Submit prayer requests to be prayed for by someone who is brimming with the living Word within him, which I firmly believe is the biggest key to effective prayer: the Word sanctifies (John 17:17) and cleanses (Ephesians 5:26) and keeps pure (Psalm 119:9) and away from sin (Psalm 119:11); now combine all of this with the fact that “the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer” (1 Peter 3:12) and “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much” (James 5:16b) and perhaps speaking most poignantly to the amazing link between memorizing Scripture and an effective prayer life, “If you abide in Me, and MY WORDS ABIDE IN YOU, ask WHATEVER you WISH, and it SHALL BE DONE for you.” (John 15:7). How will people’s lives literally change and be transformed by the supplication and intercession by one in whom such a massive amount of Scripture will be dwelling? GAME-CHANGER. Life-changer. WORLD-changer! (Literally. Just ask the people who were living in the time of Elijah.)
- Find a BIBLICAL – Bible-loving, Bible-believing, Bible-practicing – church near them, right in their local area! I am already in the process of putting together this network of churches; denomination will be irrelevant, the only criterion will be the extent to which they demonstrably adhere to the principles set forth in the Bible about “how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15) With a primary focus on how supportive they are of Bible memory. I expect even just the human-interest/intellectual aspect of this project to attract countless people who aren’t even religious or are very early on in their spiritual growth who’ll need and want to find a church that will foster and maximize said growth.
- Find the businesses in YOUR area that are owned and/or managed by fellow Christians who love the Lord and His Word and realize the importance of and support Bible memory. Galatians 6:10 and 1 Timothy 6:2 make clear that it is our responsibility as Christians that our everyday choices inure to the benefit of fellow believers whenever possible, so I’m going to make that super easy and convenient by posting a nationwide (but searchable by state/county/city) LIST of Christian businesses so we can all choose THEM whenever we need a product or service; once assembled, it will appear on the “Find A Christian Biz” / Yellow Pages section here at BibleMemory.ORG so please check back for that in the coming weeks.
PHASE 3: Turn this burgeoning history-in-the-making effort into a full-speed-ahead, full-fledged, full-time ministry to Educate, Encourage, and Empower others to memorize and recite Scripture on a regular, systematic, verse-by-verse, book-by-book basis! Tall goal, but totally doable, because something very interesting happened as I memorized my very first book of the Bible, the New Testament book of James. That goal seemed not just tall but downright monumental. Undoable. Right? Wrong! Because, amazingly, the more of it I memorize, the EASIER it gets! The more of it I memorize, the more I am able to memorize. By the time I came to Chapter 5, I knew this large task was indeed going to be accomplished. BIG difference than when I was facing Chapter 1 Verse 1.
This is a fantastic real-life demonstration of Matthew 19:26 which says, “With men, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Including memorizing the ENTIRE Bible! You see, in the physical realm, the more water you pour into a glass, the less capacity it will have for more water to be added. But in the spiritual realm, when it comes to God and His Word, the Bible, the exact OPPOSITE is true! The MORE you pour into your mind, the MORE capacity you’ll have for additional verses and chapters and books to be added! Not less. And this amazing power is exponential in nature: I saw a large increase in capacity from James 1 to James 5, but double or triple the capacity by the time I finished memorizing Hebrews 1-5, and then quadruple or quintuple the capacity by the time I finished memorizing Hebrews 6-10, and so on. This finding is literally historic, and indeed the closest thing to a bona fide miracle in recent history of which I’m aware: it’s verifiable, it’s tangible, and – due to the “living and active” nature of the Bible (Hebrews 4:12) – it’s even repeatable. While the specific extent of this phenomenon might vary from person to person, the essence of the Word does not. Ever. This is how I’ll be able not just to Educate and Encourage the masses to memorize and recite Scripture on a regular, systematic basis but also to EMPOWER them to do so (the Word through me). (Believe me, once a person gets a taste of this, his or her life will never be the same. Human metaphors don’t really do it justice but in terms of the Christian life, it’s like trying filet mignon for the first time after a lifetime of eating hamburger.)
This will primarily be accomplished by producing a course, a syllabus, an entire series of videos, CD’s, and even audio cassettes, which will take all of this and make it SUPER EASY and CONVENIENT for people the world over to learn and apply this at their own pace and as their individual schedules permit. I am utterly convinced that another worldwide spiritual revival will occur, but I’m even more certain that it will only occur as people start ingesting the living Word of God by memorizing and reciting it regularly – “all the day” (Psalm 119:97) and even “day AND night” (Psalm 1:2-3).
By the way, this would be a great time to let you know that as I’ve been memorizing Scripture, a very specific METHOD of doing so is coming into focus, which, as noted above, I can testify firsthand is making it MUCH EASIER for me to memorize and retain – not just the Bible but EVERYTHING: to-do lists, schedule and meetings, various events that occur, etc., a true “sponge” effect! – and I’m 99.9% sure that it will do so for virtually anyone and everyone who applies it. It’s still coming together but seems to be getting close to the point that it can be rolled out. This one aspect alone of this one phase alone could easily and literally change the world and people’s everyday lives.
PHASE 4: Set up new and/or work with established addiction centers to specifically address the huge need for healing, curing, and then preventing from recurring (relapse) the massive crisis of addiction to pain killers, opioids, and other drugs, as well as the dreadful disease of depression. I am absolutely certain that the best and probably only way to truly beat, to truly eradicate, overcome, and conquer an addiction is to turn to something even more addictive – and I am equally certain that the most addictive thing in the universe is the BIBLE, the living and active Word of God, the Word ingested. No doubt about it. The main challenge is that so relatively few ever really give regular and systematic Bible memory a try, but I – with your and the Lord’s help – intend to change that!
It won’t happen overnight but I have no doubt that change is indeed coming. And just in case you don’t think the Bible extends or has relevance to the physical realm of human existence, I humbly give you Proverbs 4:22 which, referring to the Bible, the “my words” of verse 20, clearly states that His words “are LIFE to those who find them, and HEALTH to ALL their WHOLE BODY.” Is that an amazing verse or what?! We have a super-duper health “pill” readily available to us (the Bible is the most-published and available book of all time) yet SO FEW EVER ACTUALLY SWALLOW IT! To their utter “missing out” yet few if any are even aware of this because nobody has trumpeted it from the proverbial mountaintops but with your help I intend to change this, too, and do just that!
I didn’t start memorizing entire books of the Bible as a child but did memorize a lot of single Bible verses and – totally not surprisingly in light of that verse/truth/fact – I haven’t had to see a doctor or go to the hospital my entire adult life. Not even a single time. No emergencies. No health surprises. Not one. I don’t think the two are unrelated or that this remarkable health history is mere coincidence or the result of “good genes”; no, I’m certain it’s that verse at work.
No, it won’t happen overnight but down the road I look forward to organizing some clinical/medical trials to demonstrate that this is universal and not just specific to me. I dare say that other than imparting the Gospel or giving one’s own life to save another’s, there is no greater act of love and kindness and therefore Christlikeness (since He epitomized and epitomizes both) than to free a person from the cruel slavery and bondage of addiction or depression, to provide them with the answer, the antidote, something that actually and permanently WORKS! So even just this phase of the action plan will likely be enough to revolutionize the nation and world.
CONCLUSION: If you like what you’ve heard here and found yourself nodding in agreement several times, please read on…
New Shoe, Part Two
/in Uncategorized /by Bible MemoryBy experience, not design, this post is a follow-up to the previous one.
I made my maiden voyage in the aforementioned new sneakers today (a five-mile walk/jog combo) and OUCH, my feet and legs are KILLING me!
Blisters on left and right, feeling a new muscle in my calves I never knew was there… I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
Well it turns out that the new pair of shoes I had just worn for the first time were defective. Defectively made. Factory error. Two, in fact: they had an exaggerated flat-footed effect since the cushion inside was far too thin, and secondly it wasn’t secured such that is slipped around like a well-oiled eel while I was walking, thus causing the blisters while the former caused the new and very unwelcome sensation in my feet and calves.
And that’s when it hit me, this glorious thought, this tremendous truth: thankfully God never makes a mistake when creating each of us!
No. Factory. Errors. With. God. He makes each and every one of us exactly as intended. Which sometimes seems “defective” from a human perspective but is actually and absolutely perfect and precious in God’s view, in reality. On which even Republicans and Democrats alike can agree, and indeed have. Like Sarah Palin who famously had her fifth and final child despite knowing in advance that he had Down Syndrome. And like the Kennedy family who even far more famously have fought fiercely for five decades (via Special Olympics) on behalf of those that some people might (wrongly) view as “defective” in mind or body but whom they (very rightly) have viewed as preciously, perfectly-made people whose minds or bodies are just different than most but they’re no worse, no less weighty, no less valuable.
And it’s this fact that each and every person has been created exactly as God intended and in His very image which makes it so self-destructive to view others – to view anyone – as “less than” or “inferior” or “defective” or anything but worthy of respect and love and care and kindness. Not because of them so much as Who made them. Not because of a person’s beautiful outward physical image but rather that they were created in the image of God Himself.
The logical, intellectually-honest result of maintaining this perspective is enormous love and respect for others… as well as for oneself – i.e., genuine, sturdy, steady self-esteem.
Yes, my friend, as I found out the uncomfortable way this week, shoe manufacturers make mistakes and errors and defects. Thankfully – and infinitely more importantly – God never does. So let us love and look out for others as much or even more than we do for ourselves…
and let us accept and love ourselves since God does…
in view of the fact that we are indeed “wonderfully made”… if the righteous, holy, perfect God can accept and love a sinner like me, then a sinner like me can and must accept and love others. And that’s a very easy task when one is aware of Whose wonderful image in which they were created. I.e., when looking at our fellow man, may we see the handiwork and indeed very image of God, and treat them accordingly.
Not out of political correctness but rather spiritual correctness.
Not because society says to but because God does.
Not because people are inherently worthy but because God is.
Not because people don’t make (a lot of) mistakes (I put myself at the top of that list) but rather because God doesn’t.
No. Factory. Errors. With. God.
Unlike a certain shoe manufacturer.
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Quick Thought: There’s a price. But it’s worth it!
/in Uncategorized /by Bible MemoryNo sooner had I written the previous post that, yep, you guessed it, on the very next walk one of my shoes sprang a leak, developed “a hole in the sole” as that previously-published post put it. So I just bought a new pair. And it hit me that I always have the exact same conundrum when replacing my shoes: even though I usually wear the old ones down to the nitty-gritty, thus making it absolutely necessary to replace them, I still hate the notion of putting on the new pair that very first time – because I know that they’ll no longer be sparkling clean. (Nor smell brand new. 🙁 ). I know that just the act of wearing them is going to get them dirty, to kick off that unavoidable process.
But just as quickly as that initial thought hits me each time I replace my sneakers, this one immediately follows and even more strongly: because walking or biking is my only means/mode of transportation since selling my only vehicle a year or two ago so I could finish building this website so anyone anywhere can track my progress each step of the way in memorizing the entire Bible, the follow-on thought each time is that I won’t be able to accomplish the things I need to – the things the Lord wants me to – unless I replace the tattered old pair of shoes with new ones.
And that’s exactly the principle perfectly and precisely and picturesquely painted in Proverbs 14:4!
New and shiny is fine. Used and productive is far better.
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Holes in Soles
/in Uncategorized /by Bible MemoryI love to exercise. My mind (as you can probably tell right away when viewing the Videos page) and also my body – the temple He has handed out to house His Holy Spirit within me for now.
I look forward to those benefit-packed sweat sessions – especially the every-two-or-three-days extended, multi-hour ones – with great anticipation and enthusiasm. With two exceptions.
I’ll elaborate on the second soon in a separate post but the first such exception is when my shoes have developed holes in their soles.
Having sold my only vehicle a year or two ago mainly to finish building this website, that happens a lot. Since I walk so much now. Literally everywhere I go, it’s either by foot or bike, and I usually opt for the former so my shoes develop holes much more quickly than most people’s pair of a pedestrian’s best friend.
And that happens so quickly, those holes appear seemingly out of nowhere and without notice – i.e., the bottom of the shoes look just fine and then, wham, next thing I know, I feel a spike of pain when my foot lands squarely on a rock in the road or path and I look at the bottom of my shoes and surely enough, there’s suddenly a hole newly staring back at me.
Due to how much walking and jogging I do, this happens every few months, and when it does, I can honestly say that I definitely don’t look forward to the next walk to the store since I know it’ll likely involve some pain.
And that’s exactly how it is in the Christian life! In one’s walk with the Lord as it were: it’s much better when one doesn’t have holes in their souls.
One automatic, guaranteed result of Bible memory on a regular, systematic basis is that it opens one’s eyes to a lot of things (“enlightening the eyes”, Psalm 19:7-8) but perhaps none more so than just how righteous and holy God is… and humanity isn’t. Perhaps none more so than just how “prone to wander” into sin we are as the hymnist famously put it in that wonderful and much-beloved song, just how easily and naturally our flesh still sins – our fallen flesh which (unfortunately) still envelops our “new man” within, our new spirit, our new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17) such that even the most spiritually-mature person in non-deitic human history (i.e., not including Jesus), the Apostle Paul himself, concluded and confirmed that “nothing good dwells in” any of us humans, “that is, in [our fallen] flesh” and that “the good that [we] wish, [we far too often] do not do; but [we] practice the very evil that [we] do not wish” because of the “sin which [still] dwells in [us]”, because “of the law of sin which is [still] in [our] members”, in our bodies, “waging war” against our minds (Romans 7:14-25), all of which is why Hebrews 12:1 specifically and explicitly mentions “sin which so easily entangles us.”
“Prone to wander”, indeed.
But I have good news! God has graciously given us a (spiritual) “pill” as it were, a most-effective, miraculous “medicine” which is so powerful (but without any negative side effects!) that it can and does rid one even of something so dastardly and indeed default-status as sin! And that “pill”, that mighty “medicine” is, yep, the Bible. The Bible in general and Bible memory in specific.
What a wonderful weapon in our spiritual arsenal! And all we have to do is pick up that “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” – the Bible! (Ephesians 6:17)
One does so by ingesting it, by putting the Bible into one’s mind, “[from which] flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
Yes, my friend, it’s foolish for a frequent walker or jogger to have holes in their soles.
It’s infinitely worse for people to have holes in their souls.
Memorizing and reciting Scripture is like buying a new pair of shoes.
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