The Memorize 365 Challenge. It’s a discipline of grace God allows for our good. Will you receive it from His hand this year?

Memorizing is messy and hard. Sometimes you feel like you just can’t! It can be frustrating and sometimes you forget what you worked on. I am telling you this, not to talk you out of it (warm smile), but so when the difficulty hits your real everyday life, you won’t be surprised.  Knowing God’s Word in a lasting way requires discipline, lots of it! Can I just say…it is so fun, so rich, such an abundant way to live…dwelling in the Word, the Word dwelling in you. No, it  is not for the faint of heart, but I promise your heart will faint without this discipline. We grow cold and hard without Him.

The end of memorizing is always and only Jesus, the full joy of His presence.

We have no breath for our soul’s lungs except what God breathed-out. The Bible is a God-breathed word. It is alive, and we cannot live without it. Our souls are insatiably hungry, our throats parched with thirst. It is living bread we are longing to eat. It is living water we are longing to drink.

Our hearts are ready to be set with the finest of foods. Our minds satisfied by the tastiest of drinks. The one Word that can guide you to the bread that is His presence.

What we really want is His presence.

It’s not about knowledge. It’s not about a check list. It’s not about who can do the most. It is about Jesus. It is always always about Jesus.

If you joined the Memorize 365 Challenge on Facebook, I am so glad you’re here! Wow, thank you for being a Jesus seeker at the dawn of a New Year. If this is the first you have heard of it, join us?

What is Memorize 365?

It is a time to open wide our soul and receive a perfect gift from the very breath of God, to rejoice at His wondrous Word like one who just won a million dollars, because in Jesus we have won infinitely more than that! Imaginations fail.

It is a challenge and encouragment to memorize and/or review 3-5 verses a week 6 days a week for a full year! If God wills we will memorize 3-5 verses Monday through Friday. If you choose the memorize 3 verses a week, I would suggest a M, W, F schedule or 1 verse M-F to do 5 verses a week. If you hit a super busy week, you can dial back to 3 verses a week and still maintain the discipline. Saturday is a review day. Sunday we rest.

FIRST thing *you* must do in the Memorize 365 Challenge:

Pray about the passage the Lord is leading you to memorize. It could be Psalm chapter 1, 6 verses. Maybe Proverbs 31:10-31 or if you have memorizing for a while perhaps you want to pick a longer chapter or a short book of the Bible. It is key that you pick a passage, not a handful of Scriptures here and there.

If you pick a short chapter you may memorize it within a month or two, but the Memorize 365 Challenge doesn’t end when you finish getting it all in there. Memorizing is only the beginning…. We will do this together, but we do not all have to pick the same passage.

There is no one way to memorize. It doesn’t matter so much how it gets in, but rather how it gets out. This is why I love it…when Scripture saturates a soul and spills out in a life. 13 sweet years of memorizing the Bible…joys, struggles, repentance, fruit…. How glad am I to tell this testimony?! All you need to begin with is a passage, and I hope to unfold the plan a little more Monday Lord willing.

What if I am not doing the Memorize 365? Not to worry. Please feel free to enjoy the other blog posts. Maybe keep your eye on what we’re doing though? You might find you want to join in later or next year even.

This is a discipline of grace, memorizing and meditating on Scripture plunges you into the depths of God! It is a fact. If you stop at memorizing only though you miss so much. You might miss Him. It’s not about how much you know. It never is. Remember Paul, If anyone thinks he knows anything he has not yet known as he ought to know. We don’t know much. Memorizing, then meditating is always about one thing Jesus and His presence full in our lives.

One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.

Psalm 27:4

Oh, bless you, bless you for choosing the way of a Jesus Seeker. Stay the course, it may be ladled with difficulty, the temptation for discouragement likely will come, but stay.the.course. God our Savior never disappoints. Open your eyes to His Word, beauty shines forth….