Scripture Study – Karen Gamble Writes

Psalm 63:6

I often wake up at least twice a night.

I used to either get up, get a drink of water, and walk through the house wondering why I was awake, or else lie there and grumble to myself about being awake when all I wanted to do was sleep.

Then I came across Psalm 63:6:

On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. (NIV)

I realized instead of being in a foul mood about being awake I could talk to the Lord about things on my mind, or pray about/review Scripture or sermons I’d recently heard..

As I began to do this, my attitude began to change.

I began to look forward to waking up in the middle of the night and having these quiet moments with the Lord.

My sleep began to improve.

i began to wake up more rested than before.

Best of all, I wake up with my mind more focused on the Lord than it has ever been.

What I thought was a problem and inconvenience turned into one of the sweetest and best parts of not just my day but my faith walk.

I still have times when I wake up grumpy because I’m awake in the middle of the night, but the moment I look to God and begin talking to Him, the bad mood leaves and peace washes over me.

I relax and feel so much better.

If you wake up in the middle of the night I hope you will try this and see how much it can improve your mood, your faith walk, and even your life.

Let me know how it goes.

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises .Psalm 119:148 (NIV)

I previously wrote a longer version of this post. You can find it here: Praying In the Night.

I wrote today’s post discussing it again because it is an important topic and it is good to occasionally have reminders.

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Memorizing Scripture

We live in a society where Scripture (the Bible) is easily accessible.

There are several websites that have the entire Bible available to read and search.

Stores everywhere sell copies.

There are tons of Bible Study books, commentaries, and devotionals available.

We even have apps for our phone.

If it is so accessible, then why is it so important to memorize Scripture?

There are several reasons.

The Bible tells us to.

Psalm 119:11 says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

To hide something in our heart means to learn it in the deepest part of us so that it becomes part of who we are.

More than facts, it is deep knowledge on the most intimate level.

When we have Scripture in us, it shapes how and what we think and do.

If it is in us, the Holy Spirit can remind us of it when we need it, like when we are witnessing to someone or when we are dealing with a situation.

This helps us know what we should and shouldn’t do as we walk through our day so that we can live a life honoring to God.

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Galatians 3:3

In Galatians 3, Paul is explaining to the Christians in Galatia that it’s not about following the law that makes us free.

Some Jewish converts to Christianity in Antioch were telling the Gentile Christians the men had to be circumcised if they wanted to be true Christians. They were trying to make it a condition of salvation.

They were teaching this because under the law of the Old Testament, God told all Jewish men to be circumcised.

Paul was explaining that it was no longer necessary to live according to the law.

Once Christ came the Old Testament law was fulfilled by His life, death, burial, and resurrection. Therefore it no longer applied.

Then Paul brought the point home when he asked the question:

Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Galatians 3:3 NIV

In other words, you know it’s grace that saves you by having faith in Christ and what He did for you at Calvary. Why are you now trying to use your works and your actions to make it happen?

The truth is we can’t.

Salvation is only given to us by us having faith in Jesus, not by anything else we do.

No matter what we do, we can never be “good enough” to earn our way in to Heaven.

It doesn’t work that way.

As I was reading this verse I thought about how we as humans often try to make things happen, not just concerning salvation but also in our lives and the lives of others.

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Idols

There are a lot of talent shows on t.v. these days.

Some even encourage you to try out and see if you’re the next Idol.

Did you get that?

Idol.

Throughout the Bible, God has shown His displeasure with idols in very clear ways.

In Exodus 20:3-6 God specifically says we are not to have any type of idol. We are not to make one in any shape. We are not to bow down to anything or to worship anything other than Him.

He goes on to tell us He is a jealous God and that He will severely punish those who make these choices.

God then shows He means this in Exodus 32.

In that passage we read about how angry God was the people had made a golden calf while they were waiting for Moses to return from visiting Mt. Sinai.

He responded by sending a plague on them as punishment (verse 35).

The subject of idols is also covered in the New Testament.

The book of 1 John closes with this warning –

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

in 1 Corinthians 10:14, Paul specifically tells us to flee from idolatry*.

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Overview of the Bible

The Christian Bible is the most important piece of literature ever written.

More than just a bunch of stories, it is a true account of people throughout history, their lives, and their relationship with God. It is a show of how much God loves mankind and an explanation of the redemption plan He has put into place to rescue us all from our sins.

It tells about God, His nature, His character, and His plan for mankind. It also gives instructions and advice on how to live a holy life that is pleasing to Him.

The bible is broken up into 2 parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Each part is a collection of books, written by various authors throughout history.

The Old Testament opens with the beginning of time when God created the world and mankind. It ends about 400 years before the birth of Jesus.

it’s books are sorted and classified into four categories.

The books of law are the first five books of the Old Testament. They were primarily written by Moses. They share how God created the world and mankind. They also explain how God established laws and explained His expectations for the Israelites. In these books He established how societies, governments, and families should be organized. He also gave clear and specific warnings against certain actions.

The books labeled history share events that happened to the Israelites. Their purpose is not to just tell us history. Their purpose is to show us God at work in the people group of Israel* and to help us understand that God has an active hand in the lives of His people.

Also called the wisdom books, the five books of poetry focus on the individual and their need for a relationship with God. These books cover every emotion we have. They are mostly made up of poetry and wise saying written by men. They are focused on helping us make wise decisions and showing us how to worship God.

The major prophets and minor prophets are books of warning. In them, the prophets are cautioning the people against disrespecting God. They help us to see where God’s heart was and how He continued to warn and work with the people even as they continued to get farther and farther away from Him. The difference between the major and minor prophet books is their length.

The New Testament starts with the birth of Jesus and goes through the end of time.

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Verse Mapping

I am a visual person.

I learn better by looking at something than by just hearing it or reading about it.

Because of this, I like to write down passages of Scripture I am studying.

I also jot down what I’m seeing and learning as well as notes from resources and study books I am using..

i don’t have a particular way to do this.

Sometimes it’s a list.

Other times I spread it out and draw circles and balloons to write the information in.

The circles and balloons approach is called Verse Mapping.

It looks sorta like this:

(Even tho I made a little mistake on one word I kept going. It’s not about a perfect looking paper. It’s about learning God’s Word.)

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Petrify

At one point in my life I felt like I was stuck and unable to move.

I couldn’t pray.

I couldn’t understand any of the Scripture I was reading.

Then the Lord showed me a word:

Petrify.

To make rigid or inert like stone; to make lifeless or inactive (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

To make someone so frightened they are afraid to move. (Google)

That’s when I realized that silent, subtle doubt and fear had snuck into my life and petrified me.

This is what caused me to be stuck – I was paralyzed by fear.

I knew the remedy was to replace fear with faith.

I cried out to the Lord in prayer and asked Him to help me to break free and to show me what to do.

A phrase came to my mind.

“Perfect love casts out fear.” .

I remembered this is a verse from 1 John 4:18–

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (NIV)

You can’t have perfect love and fear at the same time.

A few verses earlier in this chapter it tells us that God is love and whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. (verse 16)

The answer was clear.

I had to choose God and His love over my fear.

Both can’t occupy the same place at the same time.

So I chose love.

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Praying the Psalms

I recently did a bible study that involved reading and praying through the book of Psalms.

As I was doing it, I began to see that virtually every verse in there is either a promise, a praise, or both.

Praying the book of Psalms is a tall order. It took working on it daily for a little over 4 months to get through it.

I didn’t try to rush.

I didn’t try to cover a lot of territory at one time.

I just paid careful attention to the verse I was on and the various parts of it.

The study started at chapter one so that’s where I started.

As I read each verse, I prayed it in one of several ways.

I either:

-Prayed it as it was written, which worked for a lot of the praise verses;

-Prayed, “help me not to…”,. whatever the verse was warning against doing;

-Prayed, “help me to….”, whatever the verse was saying we should do or be;

-Prayed, “show me when I act this way so I can correct it…”, whenever the verse was warning against certain unhealthy actions and attitudes

Or,

-Prayed, “help me to remember who You are”, whenever the verse declared His majesty or mentioned any of His traits, grace, or goodness.

It really opened my eyes to a lot of things.

I found that the farther along I went, the more aware I became of God’s good will toward us.

I began to feel more open to Him and to His love.

I also began to feel an urge to praise Him, even when I wasn’t reading a Psalm.

The more I read, the more I saw God’s character.

I saw clearly His desire for us as well as the way He wants to protect and bless us.

It took a long time to complete but I learned so much and it changed me in so many good ways.

I plan to try to do it at least once a year.

I’m certain the more I do it, the deeper my understanding and love for Him will become.

If you’ve never prayed the Psalms I highly recommend it.

If you can’t commit to the whole book then pick a chapter and try it.

There’s so much good stuff in there, you’ll be really glad you did!

Let me know if you have other ideas about how to pray the Psalms.

I’d love to try them!

For my post on praying scriptures in general, please see my post, Praying Scriptures

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Proverbs 15:1

A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1 (NIV)

When someone says something harsh to us we have a choice.

We can say something back to them just as harsh.

Or, we can cover over their harshness with a big dose of love.

When we answer softly and kindly it deflects their anger from us and preserves our peace.

If we answer harshly we are accepting their anger and embracing it as our own.

This causes us harm.

As Christians we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, setting the example and showing Christ’s love to others at every opportunity.

We can’t do that if we are embracing anger instead of kindness.

We don’t always know why someone is angry.

Sometimes their anger has nothing to do with us.

That doesn’t matter.

What matters is how we respond to them.

This world is full of anger and harshness.

Let’s be the ones to respond with kindness and love at every turn.

We might not be able to stop someone’s anger, but we can meet it with soft words and kindness.

In doing so, we begin to heal the hurts we see and to spread the love of the Father to those around us.

That’s a pretty great response.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins .1 Peter 4:8 (NIV)

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV)

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Psalm 46:10

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

I’ve always looked at this verse in light of how it helps me.

I’ve even quoted only half the verse, doing so from a selfish perspective.

I’ve often referred to this verse by saying, “if you’re feeling stressed or out of sorts go sit quietly with the Lord and He’ll calm you.”

While that’s true, it’s not quite the point of this verse.

You have to add in the second half of the verse to get the true meaning.

The point of this verse is that because He is God He will be exalted.

Because of this, we should be still/quiet, know/realize He is the Creator, and act accordingly.

Sitting before God is good and it does calm us.

But it only brings us peace if we do it with the right understanding of who He is and how far above us He really is.

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