The scripture that went along with this topic is Hebrews4:12-13 which says,
12For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.13Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
This is the end of the first week of the book, and it deals with knowing what this book is all about...the Bible. Do we really know it? At the Youth Evangelism Conference, Nasser asked how many people knew a scripture verse for every year they had been a Christian? Sad things is, very few could answer that. I have been a Christian almost 15 years, and I wasn't too sure myself that I could word for word share 15 scriptures I had memorized. This is to my shame. I have memorized literally dozens of songs, TV show themes, and oh my COUNTLESS movie quotes! This provides much fun and hours of entertainment for my friends and family, but what of it is eternal?
What of eternal value? What of scripture? I need to know it more. Most need to know it more. What if we all knew more of the scriptures and actually lived them? How do we know what God wants? It's in His word! How do we know the heart of God? It's in His word! So many people, Nasser says, make the statement that they can know God just fine without reading His word, and it's just not true. The scriptures are living and active...which means ALIVE!
So, how do we know it better? Nasser gives us some tips. First, Hear the word. Statistically we retain 10% of what we hear. Read the word. We retain 25% of what we read. If you read aloud, you retain potentially 35%. To go further, you truly study the word. This is taking time to read and think, and ponder on, and dig deeper to research the scripture. Statistically we can take in 50% of what we study. That is Half! But it gets better. Those who memorize scriptures will potentially remember 80% of what they memorize! 80%! Yet so many of us don't! We say things like it's too hard, but again it's not hard for us to learn music!
Finally, to take everything we have done and apply it, we must meditate on the word. This is when we truly seek out to understand what we heard, read, studied, and memorized. Then we must act! If we simply seek for all to hear and not act, we do them a disservice. God is an active God! His word is Active! We should be too!
I pray that you take some time this week to truly hear, read, study, and memorize scripture. Then truly spend time with God asking Him to reveal to you what He would have for you! Imagine the Eternal value this could bring!
-Brian
Posts
