Bible Intake (Part 2)
Notes
Transcript
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I will hide its words within my heart, that I might not sin against God. Amen!
Scripture Reference: Jeremiah 29:13
Context
Context
We are continuing in our series, titled “Experiencing God!”
Last week, we began this series by talking about Bible Intake, and how important it is to take in the Word of God.
We discussed how that Hearing, Reading, and Studying the Word of God are all disciplines that we are to partake of for the purpose of growing closer to God.
Today, we are going to stay on this topic of “Bible Intake” because there are still yet more spiritual disciplines that we can partake of that will bring us even closer to God that what we talked about last week.
Let’s look back at our verse for this series:
13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
We all want to experience God more in our lives. We all want to grow closer. The question we are trying to answer in this series is, “How do we do that?”
Bible Intake is the first step in that process!!!
Content
Content
Moving on from studying the word of God is next, memorizing God’s Word:
Memorizing God’s Word
Memorizing God’s Word
Memorizing the Word of God is one the most time consuming ways to take in the Scriptures, but it is also one of the most rewarding. It is so powerful indeed, that it benefits the individual personally and ministerially.
It benefits you personally by:
Providing A Source For Meditation
Once a verse of Scripture has been memorized, you can now meditate on that Scripture anytime you choose. You no longer need a physical copy of the Bible with you to be able to quote that verse, but you have it in your heart at all times.
97 Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.
Having Scripture memorized allows us to keep God’s Word in our hearts at all times.
Provides A Source For Guidance
24 Your testimonies also are my delight And my counselors.
Once you have verses of Scripture memorized, they can and will become a source of guidance in your life. These verses will remind you of God’s will in just the right moment so that you are fully equipped to walk with the Lord and keep yourself from evil.
For instance, you may be in the middle of a conversation, trying to decide exactly what to say and how to say it, and all of a sudden Ephesians 4:29 pops into your head:
29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.
Now I am suddenly reminded that my speech is to be Godly and used for the edification of others. I am to administer grace to those whom I am speaking with.
11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.
Or maybe something happens and you are on edge. You are anxious about it, worried about it, and just not sure what you need to do. Then this verse comes to mind:
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
Having Scripture memorized allows the Holy Spirit to guide me based upon what is already there by bringing those things to remembrance.
Strengthens Your Faith
17 Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, And apply your heart to my knowledge;
18 For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you; Let them all be fixed upon your lips,
19 So that your trust may be in the Lord; I have instructed you today, even you.
When I have a host of verses stored up in me, it means I can walk through this life with confidence knowing that wherever I go, or whatever I face, I will do so with the Lord. His Word will be with me, constantly reinforcing the truths of God, often times just when I need it. I can trust that the Holy Spirit will keep me by bringing to remembrance that which I need at that moment.
Equips Us For Spiritual Battle
When you have Scripture memorized and stored in your heart, you are better equipped to fight life’s battles. The Holy Spirit will use these verses as weapons against the enemy, and it is at this moment that Ephesians 6:17 comes to life:
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
The Word of God becomes a weapon, but not just any weapon, it is the weapon… the best weapon to fight against the lies, schemes, and trickery of Satan. It is the best weapon because it sheds the truths of God upon the lies of Satan, and it allows us to see the situation at hand for what it is, instead of what Satan wants us to see. It brings clarity in the midst of confusion, and calm in the midst of chaos.
This is exactly what Jesus did in Matthew 4 when He was tempted by Satan… He used the Word of God to defeat him. One of the verses He uses during this battle is none other than:
4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Memorization Stimulates Meditation
The Word of God is the “sword of the Spirit,” but if there is no Bible physically accessible to you, then the weapon of the Word must be present in the armory of your mind in order for the Spirit to wield it. Imagine yourself in the midst of a decision and needing guidance, or struggling with a difficult temptation and needing victory. The Holy Spirit enters your mental arsenal and looks around for available weapons, but all He finds is a
In other words, the more Scripture that we commit to memory, the more prepared we are for the battles of life that we will face.
But which Scriptures should I memorize first? Well that is totally up to you. You know you better than anyone else does. You know what battles you face most often, so start by memorizing the Scriptures that deal with those things. Then move on to memorizing Scriptures for other things. When you are reading through God’s Word and a certain verse sticks out to you and speaks to you greatly, write that one down and begin the process of memorizing it.
You can see how beneficial that memorizing Scripture can be, but some of you have already checked out on me because you think to yourself, “This doesn’t apply to me. I couldn’t remember Scripture if I wanted to.”
What if I told you that this is not true. If you can remember your address, phone number, and your spouse’s name, then you can remember a Bible verse. You memory is working, or you wouldn’t be able to remember anything.
With that being said, you do have to have a plan in place. We said earlier that memorizing Scripture is one of the most time consuming ways to take in the Scriptures, but it is also one of the most rewarding. If you want to be prepared to fight against Satan, then you have to have a plan in place to memorize Scripture.
This can be done through various ways: Scripture writing, flash cards, Bible Apps on your phone, or other means, but all of them work for the same purpose, to get the Word of God into your heart so that you can be lead by it throughout your day.
So we have the means of memorizing God’s Word, but we also have one more means in which we are to take in the Scriptures, and that is Meditating On God’s Word.
Meditating On God’s Word
Meditating On God’s Word
This is by far one of the most important ways to take in the Scriptures, but it is indeed a spiritual discipline.
Meditating on God’s Word means that you are thinking deeply on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture, or upon life from a scriptural perspective, for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer.
The analogy used in this book to describe the meditation of God’s Word is a cup of tea:
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Meditating on God’s Word—Benefits and Methods
In this analogy your mind is the cup of hot water and the tea bag represents your intake of Scripture. Hearing God’s Word is like one dip of the tea bag into the cup. Some of the tea’s flavor is absorbed by the water, but not as much as would occur with a more thorough soaking of the bag. Reading, studying, and memorizing God’s Word are like additional plunges of the tea bag into the cup. The more frequently the tea enters the water, the more permeating its effect. Meditation, however, is like immersing the bag completely and letting it steep until all the rich tea flavor has been extracted and the hot water is thoroughly tinctured reddish brown. Meditation on Scripture is letting the Bible brew in the brain.
Meditating on God’s Word comes after you have read, studied, and memorized Scripture. It is to find a quiet place free of distraction, and simply soak in the Word. It is to free your mind of everything else, and simply think deeply concerning a particular truth or passage. It is to play it out in your mind, visualizing all of those involved, what they have said, why they said it, and what the spiritual application you are to get from it is.
8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
God calls Joshua to lead His people. Joshua is to step up and step into the role left behind by Moses. Joshua is a young man, and no doubt, he is concerned that he will be able to fill the role of Moses. In loo of this situation, God tells Joshua that the key to his success will be the intake of His word through meditation.
It shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.
See, meditating on the Word of God leads to obedience. And it is this obedience to the Word that God says will lead to prosperity and success.
1 Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.
The man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, or in the path of sinners, or sits in the seat of the scornful shall be blessed. But notice what keeps this man from walking in darkness: his delight is in the Law of the Lord and He meditates in it day and night.
Once again, we see that the meditation of the Word of God brings about obedience. These verses go on to say that the man who meditates in the Law of the Lord shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. My goodness, doesn’t that sound good? Isn’t that… that right there… what we all long for in our own personal walk with the Lord.
As i said earlier, memorizing Scripture is the most time consuming, but it is also the most rewarding.
We have been exposed to the Scriptures for years: coming to church, going to Sunday School, hearing some good preaching. But if we really want to experience God on a whole other level, we can’t just be exposed to it, we must absorb it. We must take it in, soak in it for a while, and allow it to change us.
Meditating on the Word of God is just that… it is absorbing it in. And as Donald Whitney says, it is this “absorption of Scripture that leads to the experience with God and the transformation of life we long for when we come to the Bible.”
The psalmist who wrote Psalm 119, tells us that had even more understanding than his teachers… why?
98 You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation.
It was because he meditated on the Scriptures constantly.
We are to memorize the Scriptures, meditate on the Scriptures, but most importantly of all, we are to Apply the Scriptures.
Applying God’s Word
Applying God’s Word
Let us remember where we started:
7 … discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness;
The goal of taking in the Scriptures is to become more godly. It is to become like our Master. We cannot forget this. This is actually the drive, the motivation, the hunger that lives within each of us. We hate sinfulness of this world, especially the sinfulness of this world that tempts and plagues us each and every day. Our longing to be with Jesus comes from that very hatred. We do not want to sin, but in our flesh, we cannot keep from it. We are not perfect, nor will we ever be this side of eternity.
So we long for heaven, so that we might be with our Heavenly Father who loves us despite our imperfections, but also so that we might be like our Heavenly Father, free from sin and darkness. When we are with Him, we will also be like Him.
So as we read the Word of God, our goal is not simply to gain knowledge. It is not just to become smarter. It is to become closer, and we get closer to Him as become more like Him. Our goal, is to read the Word, and then apply it to our lives.
One scholar once said that, “The greatest gap in American Christianity is not between what we know and what we don’t know. The greatest gap in American Christianity is between what we know, and what we apply to our lives.”
For some reason, we have allowed ourselves to think that if we just come to church enough, we will become Godly. Truth is, that never worked, and it never will.
As the verse says, we must “exercise ourselves toward godliness”, which means that we have to put in the work. We must put in the work to learn what the Word of God says, but even more importantly than that, we must put in the work to understand what the Word of God is saying to us… and then we must apply it, or do what it says.
It really is that simple:
22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror;
24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.
25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.
God says that it is when we take in the Word and then align ourselves with what it says, that we will be blessed.
17 “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
Jesus again says that it is not enough to just know the Word, we must be obedient to it.
Remember that we said meditating on the Word brought forth obedience. That is because as we meditate, we are thinking about what the Word says, but also what it means. What is God saying in this text, and what does this mean to me? Is there a promise I need to claim, a sin I need to confess, an apology I need to make to someone, a new truth that I need to unpack… What does this mean and how does this change me?
That is application. When we soak in the Word of God and then ask that question… “How does this text change me?” That is the application of the Word of God in our lives.
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Paul tells us that as Children of God, we are to hear, read, study, memorize, and meditate on the Word of God so that we might Apply the Word of God to our lives… “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is… ”
This is our goal. This is our aim. As we apply the Word of God to our lives, we become more like our Jesus, and as we become more like Jesus, the more personal our relationship is with Him. We are able to feel His presence more often and more clearly. We are able to discern His will quicker and with greater ease. We are able to walk with confidence knowing that our life is the will of God because the will of God is written and memorized upon the tablets of our hearts and goes with us everywhere we go.
This is the more abundant life that Jesus came to give us:
10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Commitment
Commitment
As we come to a close today, I want you to consider where you are with Christ. My hope is that you are saved and seeking a deeper relationship with Him.
If you are not saved, that simply means that you have never placed your faith in Jesus as your Savior and your Lord. If that is something you want to do today, you just need to talk to Him, or pray to Him.
Admit that you are sinner far from Him, but that today you place your faith in Him to save you. You must believe who Jesus says He is, the perfect Son of God sent by God to die for the sins of mankind, for your sins and for mine. You must believe that the blood He shed is a sufficient payment for your sin and that it can save you. You must believe that He loves you enough to want to save you from yourself and the sin that holds you guilty before a righteous, Holy God.
Then you must confess that Jesus is Lord, not only in your heart but to all of God’s people. You cannot be ashamed of Jesus. Do that today. Pray to Him right now… right there where you sit. Ask Him to forgive you and save you.
Maybe you are saved, but you have never intentionally sought the Lord as we have discussed today, through memorizing Scripture, meditating on the Scriptures, or applying them to your life. To be a disciple of Jesus means that we are followers of Him. To follow Him is to agree with His teachings, and then also to live out those teachings in our lives.
Maybe before today, you didn’t know that these things were needed and necessary in your life, but now you do. Now that you know, you are accountable to do them. Will you come and talk to God about what that looks like for you? Will you come and ask Him to help you make these things a regular part of your life? Will you come and ask Him for guidance to help you figure this out for yourself, and also for your family?
