Deep Blue Devotion #4 - Bible Memory Aid

Originally published in WORLD Magazine, Coverdate March 13, 2010. p. 66

Do you need help memorizing Scripture? MemorizeNow.com is a website where you can paste in a passage and then use tools that aid memorization. You can, for instance, see the text with all the words displayed. With a click you can change the setting so only first letters are displayed. Or, from the full text page, you can click and make some words disappear. Scroll over the space where the missing word belongs and the first letter of the missing word appears.

Couple this useful tool with text copied from one of the online Bibles (See the English Standard Version at gnpcb.org)

|| Deep Blue Devotion || a series of biblically creative helps

at jaredstevenmusgrove.blogspot.com, intended to aid in

enhancing intimate times with the Lord and

deepening personal discipleship. ||

Deep Blue Devotion #3 - Projected Worship

|| Deep Blue Devotion: a series of biblically creative helps

for enhancing intimate times with the Lord and

deepening personal discipleship. ||

You may have found yourself in the same situation I have: you are in a worship service singing your heart out to words projected on a screen. A thought strikes you: "I wish I knew this song better so I could worship with my eyes closed. Or have the freedom to not be glued to the screen. Or the lead worshipper's guitar face."

I'm a mostly eyes-closed worshipper. I like the minimization of distraction. But there are certain, neigh, many songs I don't know well enough to belt out by heart. So I am somewhat dependent on lyrics projected as I sing. They certainly are necessary (think back to that time last Sunday when the media team skipped or didn't change a slide to the tune. Holy Hush, Batman!).

But I truly dislike being glued to a screen as I sing in worship. It's especially difficult with your head downward in a hymn book (crushes the larynx). So I had the idea of glancing over the dozen or so lyrics on the screen as it changes, then closing my eyes and projecting those words to my Sovereign Father. It's amazing how your brain can pick up the lyrics so quickly and recall them (and it's just fine to peak mid-verse if need be).

Glance back up as the next set of words or chorus pop up on screen, praise and repeat.

Make a joyful noise in worshipping Him this week,

-jsm-

Deep Blue Devotion #2 - Why My Bible Looks Like a Coloring Book

Deep Blue Devotion: a series of biblically creative helps

for enhancing intimate times with the Lord and

deepening personal discipleship.

As you can tell from my blog title (Light Blue) I'm a color-attuned person. And as such I began a Bible-reading practice in college of using colored pens to underline the words of Scripture as I read. It was encouraging to me this week to meet a brother in Christ who did the exact same thing. This has inspired me to share this in this week's DBD about coloring in your Bible.

The year was 2003. The Iraq War began. Scientists mapped 99.9% of the Human Genome. And Coldplay's "Clocks" was in heavy rotation on radio stations. Half-inspired by a shiny-new package of multi-colored G2 pens, the other half from devotional helps someone gave me, I took the new Bible I bought for myself, took a spin through the Scriptures using the DJ Bible Reading Plan for the first time and employed my use of color thusly:

Crimson: Christ-centered or theologically resonant statements

Light Blue: explicit passages of promise and hope

Black: Sobering passages of judgement of justice

Green: Calls and inspirations to personal growth and spiritual formation

Blue: Wisdom or Proverbial statements

Purple: Unadulterated praise to God

That just happened to be the colors contained in that particular package (there was also a pink pen, but I gave it to my sister. Nothing personal against pink, but, yeah...). There are many other pen colors and highlighters out there, but these just seemed to be the ones that stuck with me. There are myriad passages where the colors criss-crossed because of the richness and multifaceted nature of God's Word.

And as I still use that same Bible in lesson preparation and teaching, it is helpful to my teaching and to my heart to have these color-coded reminders of the variety and beauty of God's Word to us.

You don't have to use my color assignments or systems. You may have your own or another idea of marking in such a way as to remind you of truth in the Word (if so, please send it on). But the most important thing is to be reading and interacting with the Bible. It's okay to write (or color) in your Bible.

For me it's been essential.

-jsm-

Deep Blue Devotion #1 - Bible Reading

|| Deep Blue Devotion: a series of biblically creative helps

for enhancing intimate times with the Lord and

deepening personal discipleship. ||

Good intentions often fail for simple lack of planning.

One of the best intentions of most Christians is reading the Bible all the way through. But most of us putter out and lose focus, direction, and discipline around Leviticus. Just bein' honest.

Living as a disciple means continually going to the Source of spiritual nourishment and strength. We cannot survive as disciples if we are not having our minds continually renewed by the Word of God as revealed in Scripture.

One of the best helps I have found and utilized to fashion this spiritual discipline in my life is the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan. It is a flexible-yet-structured approach to reading Scripture. You can begin at any time during the year with as many as four readings and as few as one for each day. The plan grants 25 reading days a month, so there is plenty of leeway if you miss a day or two. Or if you find yourself on the 25th of the month having completed all the readings, you may wish to go back and look over the truths you took in or journaled.

Whether you use the DJ reading plan or simply Google "bible reading plans" and find another, the most important discipline is to come to the Word as the Psalmist: "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" (Ps. 42:1-2)

As you approach the Word, ask that God would reveal to you His quenching truth and that you would not walk away the same. I pray with you in this.

-jsm-