My dear friend just recently became a widow. I was inspired by her at church on Sunday. When a few of us gathered around her to offer our love, she remarked: \u201cI\u2019m memorizing this scripture \u2013 Psalm 62:5-7 — \u201cYes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him. Truly He is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress; I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge.\u201d
This new widow precisely knows the fast track to living in the peace and comfort of God. She is hiding God\u2019s Word in her heart.
I\u2019m ever grateful for my upbringing in church because that\u2019s where I received the \u201csolid rock\u201d foundation for my life. My parents were wise in that \u201cchurch\u201d was our \u201cgo to\u201d place for friendships, worshiping God, and hearing His Word. And it was also, in my opinion \u2013 the best place EVER to hang out with my girlfriends and check out the \u201cnew guy\u201d that was coming to church! Church was where I met the love of my life at age 12. It started a life-long romance.
It was at church where I was taught the \u201ctreasure\u201d of reading God\u2019s Word, the Bible, which contains Holy Scriptures — the sacred writings of the Old and New Testaments. From my earliest years, I was taught to \u201chide God\u2019s Word in my heart so that I wouldn\u2019t sin against God\u201d by memorizing scriptures (Psalm 119:11).
In Sunday School and VBS, we were incentivized memorizing scripture. And those times paid off well for me. To this day, those scriptures are still embedded in my heart, and at a moment\u2019s notice of weakness, temptation, concern, etc., one of those scriptures I learned, will pop up on the screen of my mind and I\u2019ll give the enemy \u201cwhat for\u201d by quoting it to him. The enemy\u2019s voice says: \u201cYou are afraid to do that!\u201d God\u2019s voice from His Word and in my heart says: \u201cGod has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.\u201d (2 Timothy 1:7)
We have the BEST role model \u2013 Jesus. He quoted SCRIPTURE to the enemy when he said to Jesus, (Matthew 4:3-4) \u201cIf You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.\u201d But Jesus answered from Deuteronomy 8:3, \u201cIt is written, \u2018Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.\u201d
Maybe you weren\u2019t raised the way I was, but it\u2019s never too late to start memorizing some of those “life-line” scriptures. I know. You don\u2019t have time. Your memory isn\u2019t what it used to be. You tried before and gave up. You think it\u2019s too hard. I get it. Totally. Still, here\u2019s what the Bible says: \u201cKeep my words and store up my commands within you.\u201d (Proverbs 7:1) Keep and store. That\u2019s memorizing Scripture in a nutshell. You can do this, and it\u2019s so worth it.
The benefits of having His Word in your heart? Huge. Someday, we may not have access to the Bible. What happens if we lost our sight, our hearing or even our Bible? I remember holocaust survivor, Corrie Ten Boom\u2019s remarkable story and her witness of the power of memorized scripture while she was in captivity. It was her lifeline. Literally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing\/Memorizing scriptures enables us to share God\u2019s truth with confidence. We\u2019re able to refer to a scripture to a hurting friend. If we don\u2019t know scripture, we\u2019ll only be giving our opinion. Plus, when temptation knocks on our door, the verses we\u2019ve memorized will come to our rescue. Countless times God\u2019s Word has stopped me in my tracks before I veered down the wrong path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can take the fast track to memorize scriptures by having the Bible app on our cell phone, our laptop, and our bookshelf. But where it makes the most difference? Right here \u2013 hidden in our hearts!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My dear friend just recently became a widow. I was inspired by her at church on Sunday. When a few of us gathered around her to offer our love, she remarked: \u201cI\u2019m memorizing this scripture \u2013 Psalm 62:5-7 — \u201cYes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him. Truly He is my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23184],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15764,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15762\/revisions\/15764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}