PASTOR: Anyone go through any of the “X-Ray Questionnaire” from last week? Did the Holy Spirit help you “see” idols in your heart that you hadn’t been aware of before? Yeah, me, too…

Several weeks ago I spoke about a war going on in the minds of every Christian: How we want to live the ways God calls us to live but can often feel as though there are invisible powers working against us trying to get us to live our old selfish, sinful ways, instead. So we began talking about the importance of the Bible – what Paul calls the “Sword of the Spirit” – in fighting this ongoing, daily battle inside ourselves.

Pete Chapin from The Gideons International came and shared stories of those whose lives have been transformed by reading, believing, and acting on the words of the Bible. And I shared that “X-Ray Questionnaire” to help us uncover the lies, the clever deceptions, and the twisted truths that we’ve accepted into our thinking and believing and then went on to talk of how to begin finding the appropriate truths across the Bible to combat them and help us begin building and reinforcing our lives on Christ.

Today I’m going to share with you a training regimen – a daily pattern, if you will – for keeping ourselves in the Scriptures, for feeding upon God’s Word, for saturating ourselves with the Bible day by day by day. The regimen – the pattern – has three parts: Reading the Bible; praying the Bible; and, memorizing the Bible.

Let’s receive the Word of God…

ELDER: Colossians 3:1-17 [NLTse] (Announce the address several times, giving everyone in the congregation who’s trying to the time they need to get their Bibles open to the right page.)

¹ Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of Heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. ² Think about the things of Heaven, not the things of Earth. ³ For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ And when Christ, Who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all His glory.

⁵ So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. ⁶ Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. ⁷ You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. ⁸ But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. ⁹ Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. ¹⁰ Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like Him. ¹¹ In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and He lives in all of us.

¹² Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. ¹³ Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. ¹⁴ Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵ And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

¹⁶ Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. ¹⁷ And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Sermon

There’s nothing difficult about reading the Scriptures, unless you’ve ever committed yourself to read them, that is. I can be living the most quiet, simple life. But as soon as I commit to start reading the Bible every day all of the sudden people are calling me and stopping by, overtime’s being given or I start having to take work home, every interruption all the busyness you can think of starts happening as soon I commit to begin reading the Bible.

So the very first step, I think, as we begin and continue to commit to fill ourselves with the Scripture is making a daily appointment to do so. If you live your life by a calendar then write it or program it in. Just like with any other appointment, don’t let distractions or even urgent matters get in the way. Of course there will be exceptions: Truly life-and-death emergencies and other such things will always have us reschedule our appointments. Okay. But other than such extremes, make the appointment and keep it, every day.

Where do you start (or go next) and how much to read? Start where you’re most excited. If you’ve always wanted to read one of the gospels, start there. If you’ve always wanted to read Genesis, start there. If you read online, or if the Bible you’re reading has section headings, just read one section at a time, and use the “Ten Ways To Apply God’s Word To Your Life” Insert that’s in today’s Bulletin to the passage. (Let’s pull that out.) You don’t have to do all ten. Try them and then pick two or three that work for and help you live His Word in your life.

You can also use the reading plans in one of the devotional booklets around the church: Daily Walk takes you through the Bible in a year (with some study helps); Closer Walk takes you through the New Testament in one year (again, with some helps). Tapestry, Youth Walk, Upper Room, Daily Bread each have their own reading plans and devotional supplements. Or if you know you can’t (or won’t) read every day, start with the four Scripture at the top of our UPCOMING EVENTS page in the Bulletin each week: Seven days, only four readings! And, again, consider using a couple of the activities on the “Ten Ways To Apply God’s Word To Your Life” Insert to drive it into your mind and heart.

I recommend setting a timer – on your phone or on the stove. In our day of hectic schedules and deadlines to keep, if you’re busy and have never read the Bible each day before, you may find yourself always looking at the clock to make sure you’re not late for … whatever you’re concerned you might be late for. A timer will give you confidence that you won’t be late so you can be fully present with the Lord as you read. Start with 15 minutes, and when you want to increase (and over time you will) set it for 30 minutes. (And go on as the Lord keeps drawing you.) But just start and feel good about even 15…

One of the activities on the “Ten Ways To Apply God’s Word To Your Life” Insert is to Pray the Scripture back to God. And that’s what I’d like to talk about next.

If you still have your Bibles open, great. If not, open to Colossians 3:12… [After everyone’s there] Perhaps we’re reading through Colossians (like we did this morning and like the Study that’s beginning this Thursday night at Carol Phillips’ home), your section – “Living the New Life” – begins with verse 1 and continues through verse 17. Perhaps verse 12 catches your attention: “Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” You decide to pray it back to God, and it might go something like this: “God: You have chosen me, chosen me to be holy – different from those around me! You dearly love me. Help me to be truly compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient.”

When we pray the Scriptures we are taking what we’ve read and learned from our readings and praying the main points for ourselves, others, or for situations around us back to God.

Here’s another one based on Matthew 6:25-34. Let’s look through the passage for a moment, and then I will pray it… Won’t you pray with me? “Father-God, Your Word says that I am more valuable to You than even the most breath-taking wonders of Your creation. You know all the things I need, and You don’t want me to worry about any of them… Father, set me truly free from anxiety and striving-for-myself. Set me truly free to seek Your Kingdom in my work and daily responsibilities and to let You worry about providing the things that I need. Help me to make seeking You my priority, and to trust You with all my troubles each and every day.”

Joni Eareckson-Tada says this about Scripture-prayer: “We pray, ‘In Jesus’ name’ at the end of our prayers so naturally but we need to learn to pray like Jesus Who is the Word of God… The Bible is our prayer book, and we’d be remiss to neglect its riches. It holds the key to finding God’s will when we pray, providing balance and meaning. Great themes abound: God’s holiness, wisdom, faithfulness, sovereignty, love, and mercy – all of which beautify our praises, adorn our intercessions, embroider our petitions, and give weight and significance to every supplication. Most of all, using the Word of God in prayer is about as close as we can get to the Living Word, the Lord Jesus. If we’re going to pray in His name, it makes sense to speak in His language.”

Lastly, I’d like to talk about memorizing the Bible. Let’s pull out another Insert you’ll find in your Bulletins titled, “Taste And See That The Lord Is Good – Scripture To Memorize And Feed Your Soul”.

Years ago me and my family started trying to memorize Scripture. We work very hard to have dinner together every night, so we chose to try to memorize around the dinner table, with me quizzing everybody in random order. It was great fun, and we learned and took a lot of God’s Word deep into our hearts. But I messed it up.

We were trying to memorize one passage a week, and then – week by week – refreshing our memorization of the old passages while continuing to memorize new ones. We got a bit behind and I wanted to try to catch-us-up by having us memorize two passages at a time for a couple of weeks. Nobody else around the dinner table wanted to, but I pushed and pushed trying to get my way…

I succeeded. That is, I did not succeed in having my family grow in memorizing the Bible, but I did succeed in aggravating my children (as Colossians warns us against doing). It wasn’t long afterwards that nobody was interested in memorizing as a family any more.

I share that as a lesson-learned in how not to do it. But while it was working for us we wrote the verses on index cards and kept the stack of cards close by the dining room table. Sometimes I took them to review while I was walking on the treadmill… You know what would work for you…

Read the Bible. Pray the Bible. Memorize the Bible. Make whatever changes in your life you need to make to take the Scriptures into you and make the Word of God a part of you. It is the positive spiritual power established in us by listening and taking into ourselves the Word of God that enables us to counter the negative thoughts or suggestions planted in our minds by the evil one. To live such an empowered life and win this battle of the mind we have to read the Bible so much that when the devil tries to tempt us through unwanted thoughts or tricky situations, we can say “no”, (through the power of the Holy Spirit).

Ascription of Praise

Now, “Let the Word of Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (Colossians 3:16-17)