Living the Journey

Several years ago I heard of a church that worked together to memorize Psalm 119. Every family took a section of the chapter and then got together to recite their prepared portion. Afterwords, they had a joyous time of fellowship and refreshments to reward their diligence. “Wow,” I thought, “what a great idea!” Memorizing scripture is vital to having a vibrant Christian walk; but sometimes it can be difficult to persevere with memorizing, and all too often our good intentions are not fulfilled.

So, inspired by the idea to turn memorizing into a group effort, I decided to set up our own scripture memory challenge for the single ladies of my church, knowing that I would then have to finish what I had started. Accountability is a marvelous tool for completing goals!

Around 30 ladies cheerfully joined in the endeavor, and each took on a chapter from the Book of Proverbs. We then met together in my family’s home for a formal tea and listened as God’s Word was quoted straight out of each other’s hearts. The time together was so sweet that when I suggested doing another scripture challenge, nearly 40 girls wanted to participate. This time even 8-12 years olds worked together to memorize, taking on the Book of Philippians, while the older ones memorized Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

Not only did we memorize together, we studied together. After every girl had recited her assigned portion and we paused for tea and hors d’oeuvres, we gathered together around the Word of God and learned from the books we had just heard from beginning to end. We learned about how Paul could write Philippians, the most upbeat letter he ever wrote (with 16 references to joy or rejoicing!) while sitting in prison and how we should live based on the mercies of God listed in the first 11 chapters of Romans; we identified lies we believe, learned the secret to contentment, and listed who we are in Christ when we become born-again believers.

Memorizing Scripture has overwhelming rewards, including setting us up for success in life! God promises that if we meditate on His Word, we will have success. In order to meditate, we need to have God’s Word in our hearts—ready to fill our minds during any idle moment. So pass on the challenge! Decide on a book from the Bible, set a date, provide a sign up sheet, and watch God bless a good work.

“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (Joshua 1:8).

~ Emily
September 2009 Journey

Update: Emily is currently running a 15-day Scripture Memory Challenge, similar to the II Timothy 2 Challenge that we did on livingthejourney.com earlier this year. Join in by visiting her website at http://everythoughtcaptive.blogspot.com/

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 5:09 pm and is filed under The Journey Continued. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.