If My Words Abide in You

Happy Thanksgiving 

I would just like to say how thankful I am for God and his word. That God gave us his word the Bible, so we can know him and enjoy him through spending time in his word. By that I mean by reading the Bible, by studying, meditating, delighting and yes by memorizing the Bible, God's Holy word. Which we as Christians so often take for granted, because as Americans the Bible has always been available to us. I would like to share with you a sermon from John Piper a Lover of God and his Word, I hope this will make us all more thankful, for God and how much he really does love us. If you like to memorize the Bible I pray this sermon will strengthen your desire to continue storing God's word in your heart, mind and soul. If your aren't into memorizing the Bible I pray you will start, or if you just enjoy hearing the Bible being quoted, this sermon is for you.

What Memorizing the Bible Means to Me

Genesis 1:1, John 1:1, Acts 4:12 and John 3:16 were some of the first Bible verses I was given to memorize in Sunday school, four and a half decades ago. Ever since then Bible memorization has been my favorite spiritual discipline.

Through the years of memorizing Scripture, I have experienced my share of spiritual highs and lows. Usually the lows were caused by some kind of sin issue. The most difficult of these spiritual lows was about four years ago when my wife suffered a stroke, and in an instant she lost all of her short term memory, and a lot of her long term memory. Pretty much every Bible verse she had memorized was gone in the blink of an eye. God wiped her hard drive.

At that time, I thought, “what’s the point.” I too lost most of the Bible verses I had memorized, but by choice. Slowly day after day, this period lasted about two years. By God’s grace he drew me back to memorizing his word again when I was driving back home alone from Texas to New Mexico. As I drove down the road I asked God to help me to start re-memorizing the book of Colossians and he did. God led us to start a Bible memory group at our church, for accountability and to encourage other believers to memorize the Bible. Since then I have memorized the book of Romans, and am currently re-memorizing 1 Peter, and memorizing Psalm 119.

God showed me through my wife’s stroke that the most important part of memorizing Scripture is the process. It’s the seconds, the minutes, and the hours of each day that I spend in fellowship with him, delighting in his word. As I run the words of each verse into my mind, God’s truths seep into my heart, transforming me by renewing my mind, and making my thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ.

I am able to think God-breathed thoughts from his word instead of my own sinful thoughts. I thank God for the gift of desiring to memorize the Bible. There is nothing like the feeling of being able to drive down the road, or sit in a waiting room or lay in bed on a sleepless night and commune with God by meditating on his word. I pray all believers will experience the joy of hiding God’s word in their heart.

Impact of scripture memorization and how God will never leave you alone even in the darkest of places

Impact of scripture memorization

Guest Post on Psalm 8

Hi my name is Aaron Waite and I recently posted a video of me quoting Psalm 8 intermixed between English and Spanish. Since it was rather unusual, the members of this LWI (Living Word Initiative) thought I should record a video explanation. I hope it encourages you and sheds some light of the subject. Please make sure to watch both videos, especially if you haven't seen the quoting video before.

Background Video

The Scripture

In my explanation video I talk a lot about encouraging native Spanish speakers, primarily Mexicans to memorize scripture, but, I don't just want to encourage them. My vision, as is the vision of this group, is to see people all around the world quoting scripture in their native tongue. Living Word Initiative is by no means linked to any nationality. We want to encourage people of every nationality and language to memorize God's word and quote it. So, I very adamantly exhort those of you whose original language is other than English to memorize God’s word and quote it! Don’t let being shy or any fear you might have detour you! Scripture memorization is an amazingly excellent way of becoming more like Christ!

Gloria a Dios! (Praise be to God) 

Aaron

Evidence Not Seen

While surfing for material on scripture memorization, I read an off handed coment, which went something like this. Darlene Rose was glad she had memorized so much scripture. And that is all it said, well this peaked my "cat killing" curiosity and I Googled Darlene Deibler Rose. Up popped this book along with a half dozen other web sites. On some of the sites you can read excerpts of this book, which I did, weting my appeite for more. I promptly ordered the book on amazon, which I am really glad I did. This is an amazing story of a young missionary woman forced to endure the horriably ordeals of a Japanese World War II prisoner of war camp. Her faith being tested, almost beyond belief at the hands of a sadisticaly keeper. At 6'4" 250 lbs I have never been accussed of being whimpy, yet as I read this story the words blured on the page as I wept reading this faith strenghtening story.

Romans 8:17 says we are fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, in order that we might be glorified with him. Glorified she is for the suffering she endured, altought Darlene suffered so much, she never lost sight of why she was there, to be a good solider for Christ. And a Solider she was, standing in front of the comander of the camp, a man who she had seen beat men and women to near death, who was breaking the news to her of her husbands death, who had died some three months prior, in a prisoner of war camp for the males. Mr, Yamaji consoled her by telling her she was still young and when the war was over, she would be able to remarry, and live a good life. Darlene asks Mr. Yamaji for premission to speak with him, being granted permission, she tells him about the hope she has in Christ, and that God put her there, in that camp,at that time to share Christ with him. The nugget of Gold, I was looking for, was when Darlene tells of when, her  Bible is taken away,  and how God uses the scripture she had memorized as a child, and even during her imprisonment, to give her spiritual food. Read this book, you won't be able to put it down.

How Busy People Memorize Scripture

I found this great website post about How busy people memorize scripture. This website is geared for women, but the advice given can be applied to men and women. I get the feeling many men, if not most think that scripture memorization is for Childern and women and that somehow they are given a pass. This is simply not true! As a member of the male species I believe it is important for men, the leaders of the church and family, to lead by example and listen to the good scriptural advice in this program, and lead your family in Bible Memorization.

Safely Home

How long could you feed on the scripture you remember, if you didn't have access to a Bible?

Introduction Videos

Welcome to the Living Word Initiative blog! Living Word Initiative is a Bible memorization group. Take a gander at this videos to find out more. Hope you enjoy and find encouragement!

Purpose and Vision

Videos

Scripture Quoting Videos

Scott Butler

Galatians 1

Sara-Grace

1st John 1

1st John 2

1st John 4

Psalm 1

Rachael

Proverbs 1

Esther

Proverbs 3:5-6

Aaron

Psalm 8/Salmo 8