Want to get a head start on a project I'm giving every person at GCC?
Here it is.
I'm asking everyone to memorize the following passage of Holy Scripture according the New International Version. This will enable us to say it together - using the same words from the same translation. My staff is already working on this passage. I hope you'll commit it to memory too.
I'll be giving this to everyone attending our communion service at 1st Wednesday in a couple of days. (By the way, this is the last time we're offering the sacrament in 2009, so I hope you'll be participating.) The rest of the church will receive my request in January with a challenge to have this perfectly memorized by Easter. You can have your memory work accomplished by Christmas if you begin now.
Here's the passage, word-for-word, just as you should memorize it.
2 Peter 1:2-12 (New International Version)
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.
If it's been a long time since you memorized anything, let me offer this bit of help. Don't worry too much about memorizing the passage. Instead, read it aloud (slow, with feeling) five times each day from now until Christmas. If you do this, you'll discover you've almost got it memorized - even though you haven't really been trying. (If you read it aloud ten times a day...all the better.)
Deuteronomy 11:18-20 - Memorize these laws and think about them. Write down copies and tie them to your wrists and your foreheads to help you obey them. Teach them to your children. Talk about them all the time—whether you're at home or walking along the road or going to bed at night, or getting up in the morning. Write them on the door frames of your homes and on your town gates.
Makes me feel like I am back in Sunday school many - many years ago, although that’s not a bad feeling, those were some of the best days of my life. I am going to enjoy memorizing this. Thank you God for memories and memorizations.
Psalms 143:5
I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done.
Posted by: Ron Windbigler | December 01, 2009 at 08:28 AM