Monday, November 12, 2012

Preparing for the Future {Digging into God's Word}

  From many different sources of reading and hearing I feel like the possibility of our country facing some hard times is very likely. Our country is in bad shape economically as are many of the people as well. I don't know what will happen nor do I know when but I personally want to be prepared.

 Being prepared is generally how I try to live my life but I am feeling (as is Ken and the kids) that maybe we should try to be a little more prepared so I plan on writing about various ways of preparing. I am not promising to write a "preparing" post every Monday but most likely I will do one fairly frequently on Mondays.

  Something that has been on my mind for a while and I have been working on but was reminded again lately of the importance of and want to work harder at is being prepared for any life situation by being grounded in God's word. And I mean God's word - not nice little devotional books that maybe mention a verse here and there and then have a lot of the author's thoughts and not listening to inspirational speakers that might expound on a verse or two. Those are quite likely well and good (though there are of course false teachers out there that we need to be careful of) but what I really need for life is to know what God's word is. If I am going to have the foundation that I need to be able to stand strong in troubled times I need to know and apply God's word.

  God is the Creator of the universe - He knows everything about everybody, He knows all of history and He knows what is yet to come. He has written instructions on how to live life in the Bible. Our job is to know what it says and to do it.

   I believe God's word is completely true and it is relevant for us today. The Bible is not something we should go through and pick and choose what we want to believe. We need to read and know it as a whole and follow it. We should go to it with a heart open to doing what it says and not trying to match it up with what we already believe. I don't think it is appropriate to start throwing things out just because we think "it doesn't apply to us today". There are parts of scripture that Jesus fulfilled and nailed to the cross (The law) but that is explained in scripture if you read the whole thing.

  Why do I feel that we need to know God's word to be prepared?

  • We never know when we might be done with this earthly life and face eternity and the Bible tells us how to be prepared for that.
  • God's word is a guidebook for life. Things will go smoother for everyone if we follow it.
  • God's word is a comfort for us.
  • God's word helps us to not be afraid.
How can we incorporate God's word into our everyday life?

Some things we currently do.....
  • Set aside times for reading it alone and as a family. I have set aside a time right after I get up to read and pray by myself in the morning and then we also read a chapter together right after breakfast and another one right after lunch. It helped a lot for me in developing habits to combine it with something that we already do such as a meal. Supper time doesn't work so well for us because many times we might have to rush to get somewhere afterwards.
  • Memorize Scripture. This is something that we do best when doing together at our house so the kids and I work on our memory work every morning during our school day starting activities. We work on or review at least one chapter a day.
  • Spend time studying it with others at church. The church that we go to is very careful to search the scriptures and we have adult and children's classes that have the main focus of studying through God's word.
  • Share it with others. I try to share God's word here on this blog and other places.
  • Have it written out and hanging throughout our house.
Some things I want to work on doing....

  • Putting up more scripture on the walls throughout our house. A lot of what is up now has been there for a long time and I honestly don't notice it very much now. I think I need to refresh what is there.
  • Studying God's word. This is something I do some but not nearly like I should. I usually do it most when I need to teach a class or something like that. I am trying to figure out how to fit more study time into my daily routine. I have been reading some of the prophets lately and I admit that I don't understand quite a bit. I need to really work at studying so that I can understand better. In study I will plan on using my concordance a lot so that I can compare similar verses together and I will probably look at writing of others as well - but always aware that those writings are not inspired!
  • Another thing I have been thinking about and praying about it hosting a lady's bible study in my home. This is still in the praying process but it is something that I might do.
  • I would also like to get the Bible on CD so that we could easily listen to it while in the van.
Something that inspired me again on this topic was a video we watched last night at church featuring Francis Chan. It is a little long but good. I hope you enjoy it too. (Caution - if children are watching, he does address a few times some of the horrors that are going on in our world today in the first part of the video. He really gets into the topic of knowing your Bible a little ways into his message.)
 


How do you incorporate Bible into your life and family time? I would love to hear what you do!

I am linking this up at the Homestead Barn Hop.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

SUCH an important post, Abbi! All my prepping hinges on this... Do I know and trust Jesus? Thankfully, I do, but without Him, fear could easily consume.

Our families seem so very similar in how we incorporate God's Word into our daily lives. I decided that reading the Word was not enough, I must study it for myself (even though my husband is a pastor!), so I have committed to teaching a class for women at our church on a regular basis. I use the Precept method and I've found no other quite like it. When you study one book, you do a lot of cross referencing to other books of the Bible so you can see how God clearly articulates His message more than once in Scripture. This is so affirming and exciting to me! (There are also word studies, structuring where you break down long sentences, and of course, application.)

My blog, Precept Revival, is fairly new and mostly for those who are attending my class, but it may give you some ideas for a class at your own church. (BTW, we take it VERY slow, splitting a lesson over 2 weeks instead of 1 week).

Again, thanks so much for sharing this important message so eloquently. I hope many more not only read it, but take it to heart!
Blessings,
Amy

Nola said...

This is a great topic. In my home I am not perfect at doing each thing every day but I am trying to make each one a habit. What we try to do is read the Bible on my own each day and pray, read with the kids out of a children's Bible and do memory work and pray with them, and then at night, we read the Bible as a family and pray and sing some songs. We have a thankful song we made up that we each add a thing we are thankful for and we usually choose some other songs (we made songbooks for this). We pretty much always do the family Bible time but sometimes the other things aren't done but I am also trying to keep making it a habit to do my own reading.

Question- we are trying to figure out what to do with our 6.5 year old who reads really well and comprehends really well but isn't quite ready to understand what she is reading in the Bible. I want to encourage her to have a daily time to read it so it can become habit now but she just doesn't absorb some of the big things (the types of things even I struggle with undrestanding). What have you done with your kids? She is eager to do it and seems to have a simple child like faith but we are not sure where she is at otherwise for sure.

Abbi said...

Amy and Nola,
Thanks so much for sharing what you are doing as well. It is so encouraging to know that others are also striving to dig into God's Word!

Amy, Your classes sound quite fun!

Nola,
None of my kids were quite to the point of reading the Bible on their own at 6 1/2 but when me children did start doing that I would suggest certian books like the Gospels, Acts, Esther, and the story areas of the old testament. Jonathan's favorite has been the Kings. Thinking about it there is "Adult content" of some sort in about every book that I can think of but for the most part I don't think the children really even grasp all the details but maybe I am wrong. Another idea would be to simply have her read in a Bible story book that cuts out some of the harder to understand things. Sorry I don't have more advice.

Nola said...

Thanks Abbi! Actually that does help. I didn't even consider some of the adult content I might have to avoid. I always consider that in other books but you're right its in the Bible too but for obviously different reasons. I only had considered parts to be hard to understand but obviously there are also parts that I don't want her knowing about yet. And I didn't consider a Bible story book as a way to avoid the adult content. Anyways some things to think about. I want to start a new way of something with her once we settle after our move.

Rick Morgan said...

Great advice. It is amazing to me that so many people don't value God's word enough to open it up.

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