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Why do you do it?

Psalm_145_letter_by_letter
Jesus did it.
So did Satan.
You do it, too.

Jesus did it to glorify His Father.
Satan did it in an attempt to glorify himself.
Why do you recite scripture?

I worked hard to memorize Psalm 145. I did the letter-by-letter thing. Listened to it aloud. Printed it out to sit on my dresser.

During sleepless nights I practiced it in my head. I blogged about it during the day. I talked about it with my friends.

I felt like Psalm 145 was mine.

So one Wednesday night when our worship leader based his whole set of songs on Psalm 145, no one was as positioned to worship God through those words as I was.

What scriptures are you making your own?

Memorizing Bible verses is no casual commitment. Investing time and energy repeating the same words over and over, pushing past frustration of forgetfulness, shows you care about these words.

And more importantly, you care about their Author.
Isn’t that ultimately why we memorize?

Look at why Jesus recited scripture. (He quoted from 24 different Old Testament books.) Can we make these our reasons too, using them to stay motivated to memorize when the task gets tough?

•    to fight against temptation (Matthew 4:10)
•    to answer others’ questions (Mark 12:28-31)
•    to bless others with God’s gracious words (Luke 4:22)
•    to free the poor, captive, blind, and oppressed with Good News (Luke 4:17-18)
•    to share God’s truths (Matthew 19:4-5)
•    to worship and honor the Father (John 7:16-18)

Memorizing and reciting scripture is so much more than locking down words.

It’s a calling. To encourage. To love. And to worship.

If that’s why Jesus did it, isn’t that why we should too?

[originally posted at Do Not Depart]

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Do_Not_Depart

2 comments:

Monica Sharman said...

(Tried commenting over there---didn't work...)
Lisa, you always spur me on. For a while I was doing OK at one verse per day. Now I'm noticing that I've dropped the ball in frequency and intensity (only on the 9th verse of John 17, even though I started that chapter weeks ago). Thanks for being the motivator and example that you are.

Lisa notes... said...

Monica,
I think it’s hard for most of us to keep going. I start out strong but then get slack as time goes on. I’m still making my way through Philippians, but chapter 4 isn’t getting near the attention that chapter 1 did. ;-) So the reminders are for me as much as anybody.

I’m glad we’re in this together!

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