There is one spiritual discipline that has risen to the top of the list for me recently. It was practiced by Jesus. And I have learned that it is central to the life of others whose life I want to imitate.
Author and professor Dallas Willard was speaking at a conference I attended a couple years ago. During a Q & A session I asked, "What has been most influential in your spiritual growth." Without hesitation he said it was Scripture memorization. When you memorize Scirpture, it gets inside of you and works deeply.
(To learn more, go to http://magazine.tiu.edu/2010/11/03/the-use-of-scripture-in-spiritual-formation/)
I have found this to be true. I invested time a couple years ago memorizing Ephesians 3:14-21. After committing the words to memory, they were available to me at any time and in any place. It created in me a desire to "experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully." These words transformed my prayers for myself and others. I am still learning to apply this passage as a husband, father, friend, pastor, and child of God.
I am challenging the people of South Park Church to memorize the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10, NIV) in the month of January. We're providing verse cards with beautiful images for each verse to help you. What might happen if these profound words of Jesus worked themselves into our hearts and our life together? I dare you to join us.
I'd love to hear from you as you practice this discipline and others. Share with us your successes and failures, your discoveries and questions.
I took 2 sets of the cards with the Beatitudes (since they are 2-sided). I plan to tape them onto a poster and hang them in my bathroom so I can read them daily as I get ready for work.
Posted by: susan | 01/04/2011 at 05:36 PM
Susan, I love your idea. This should spark ideas for others.
Posted by: Eric | 01/05/2011 at 12:22 PM
I've let "Blessed are the poor in spirit" be in my thoughts daily at work this week. For me, it has opened a greater sense of humility in me that is not self-pity, but instead it is an awareness of my limited awareness in relation to God or Jesus. It has helped me to be not only more tolerant but also more understanding and compassionate of the efforts of co-workers to be sociable and to do their work in the ways best suited to them, not the same as my ways. It has served to increase, not decrease, my dedication to trying to do a good job, serving God as well as my employer and to feel a greater sense of gratitude as I realize how blessed I am, as opposed to how smart or capable or hard-working I am.
Posted by: Sally | 01/08/2011 at 03:12 PM