Memorize a chapter of one of the Books of the Bible!
Yeah that's not so easy,
BUT
you can learn a verse of the Bible.
Let's actually learn 2 short verses from one of the longest books of the Bible, one of the best known from the Old Testament.
The Book of Psalms.
Most people would consider this a rather daunting challenge especially if they have never learned any scripture before.
Well today we are not going to tackle all of Psalm 63 but we will take on the third and fourth verses.
"Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.
Thus will I bless You while I live: I will lift up my hands in Your name."
In memorizing this verse let's look at 3 things:
Memorising Tips
A Music Video of Psalm 63 v 3&4
Some Freebies to help you.
Memorising Tips
If you read the Top 10 Ways to Learn Scripture you will see that I give 10 tips to help in this process but we don't have to use all 10 of them on each verse - just the ones that suit best with the verse.
For Psalm 63 v 3 & 4 I'm going to advise using tips 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10
1. Read the verses often, every day, multiple times in the day.
Leave a bookmark in your bible and every time you go past it grab the bible and open at the verse etc. (you will pick up other ideas later in this post).
Reading and repeating somethings over and over is the natural way to get it into your head.
With these 2 verses it is obvious to think of it in two parts verse 3 and verse 4 but also to think of each verse in 2 halves.
"Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.
&
Thus will I bless You while I live: I will lift up my hands in Your name."
2. Write out the verse several times.
Why? Because he action of WRITING helps us learn anything.
Because in each of these 2 verses it seems like there are two parts, those two parts can be written on a line each
So you are writing each verse in two halves just as reading it in the two halves as in no.1 above.
Up to date to HERE!
4. Personal testimony - Action from you and more action from you.
These two verses are a great testimony to show praise and honour and obedience to God
Verse 3 talks of God's great care for us and then the right response to this is for us to thank Him and Praise him.
Then Verse 4 continues with more response from us in that we will Bless God all our days and lift our hands in surrender to Him.
This is an example of a verse followed by a natural continuation in the following verse.
So always think of the testimony and recognition of God's lovingkindness and our natural reaction to that to help you get the two verses flowing into one complete thought.
8. Make it easy to see the verse clearly and regularly each day.
In no.1 above I mentioned your bible and a bookmark
but
we cannot have our Bible at hand every moment of the day so if you feel you need frequent readings of the verse like pop-up reminders then do the following:
Get a post-it pad and write the verse out clearly on it then tear off the post-it and stick it on
the mirror you will use first thing each morning and last thing each night
the front cover of your Bible
the front cover of the book you are currently reading
the door of the fridge
the inside of the door of the cupboard where you go to get your favourite mug for that cup of coffee
9. Make or use Bible Verse Graphics
The 2 pictures of these 2 verses Psalm 63 v 3 & 4 near the start of this post are examples of Bible Verse Graphics.
A picture with the words written on it clearly.
By making these yourself you will learn as you create them.
or
you can use ones made for you that you keep close to hand
so if you want to be encouraged by a verse each day or have a graphic you can Share to your timeline or Save in Facebook then click through to my Facebook Page and be sure to like and follow the page to see those graphics in your feed each day.
or Colouring Pages
While colouring in a Bible Verse Page you will be spending time around the words and this also helps to learn the verse.
It is well known that in singing a song you can easily learn the words of the song.
Many years ago a pastor in our denomination of churches wrote a chorus from the words of these two verses - almost word by word from the Bible and because of this song I have always found it so easy to quote these verses
Fred & I have made several short videos of songs/choruses to help you memorize certain verses and you can watch the one for Psalm 63 v 3 & 4 below
I've also prepared a playlist of Short Songs to memorize Scripture on YouTube:
Okay just admit it - who doesn't love at least one of these three things?
CHOCOLATE?
COFFEE?
CRISPS?
I started drinking coffee when I was twelve years old, up until then I had always drunk milk and I have never liked tea even though I come from Northern Ireland.
I started eating crisps and chocolate long before that but they were more of a treat and not an everyday snack when I was a young girl.
In the UK we are very proud of Cadbury's Chocolate.
Having lived in America I have to say (and I'm sorry but it is true) that Cadbury's chocolate is way better than Hershey's.
My favourite Cadbury chocolate bar would have to be the Caramel - Lovely milk chocolate with gooey soft toffee inside.
However I do also love Maltesers made by Mars.
But my real favourite of all is actually the Toffee Crisp by Nestle
For a chocolate fix it doesn't have to be a bar of chocolate or chocolate sweets, I'm never going to want to say NO to a slice of chocolate cake.
I often say I can take coffee any way as long as it's coffee. However I do prefer a Mocha
and in a large mug so that I can sip at it for ages. That's the best way to waken me up in the mornings.
My friends and family know I love coffee and for my birthday one year our daughter bought me a new coffee mug, our son and daughter-in-law bought me a taster pack selection of good coffees and our daughter's friend who owns a coffee shop in South Korea sent me some of his coffee beans as gifts and his coffee is great.
Because I am so fond of coffee I am also fond of coffee mugs which I have written about in quite a few blog posts.
Of course we live in Northern Ireland which is the home of the greatest crisps - Tayto.
They are so good they are even made in a castle!
We now live quite near Tandragee where Tayto Castle is located and so we finally arranged a trip to go see the crisps being made.
We had always hoped to do this when the kids had been younger but even though we are all grown ups now we had a great time.
When we went in the first thing we saw were the bags, of all the different types they make, hanging from the ceiling and of course we just had to get a picture of that.
Each time our daughter has been home from South Korea she also gets loads of these crisps to take back there to share with her colleagues and friends.
However there has been just one problem!
Sometimes what we love can be loved too much
and then
it is not good for us
BUT
in moderation it is ok.
When the children were young and at Primary School, Fred was out two nights a week at church meetings while I stayed home with the children and did my marking of Maths homeworks (I was a teacher a long time ago).
It started off that occasionally Fred would stop at the shop on the way home and buy two packets of crisps and two bars of chocolate and we would have this little treat before bed.
Then it became a regular occurrence on each of these evenings and eventually we started getting the packs of chocolate bars and as the years went on we simply nearly always had crisps and chocolate in the house to snack on.
Not so good for the girl who got married in a size 8 dress but now will never see that size again. Too much chocolate, coffee and crisps means too much weight and once the weight is on it is hard to get it off.
It is the same with other things in our lives, we can get too caught up in certain things and it can be bad for us.
It means we neglect other things and get into bad habits.
God has only ever wanted good for us
and that includes good habits.
Good habits and bad habits are always a part of our lives but sometimes it is very important and useful to stop and think about what are the good ones and what are the bad.
It is okay to love something
but
it is not ok to get into a habit that in the end is harmful to us and then stops us doing other things that God would like us to do.
We consider this more at the start of a new year but we should be alert and careful throughout the year too.
There is no right or wrong time to start a good habit but there is always a wrong time to start a bad habit.
There are a few things I'm thinking of as I write this and I need to ask God to help me get them back into the right perspective so that my habits and my life are more glorifying to Him. What about you? He doesn't give up on us and is ready and willing to help us, so come on we can start to make the change today!
