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Sunday, January 30, 2011

MEDITATION

This Sunday (today in a couple hours) we are going to be having our lesson in Sunday School about Meditating on God's Word.  As I prepared for the lesson last night, God reminded me about a couple of posts I did last year about storing God's Word in our hearts.  God has been making me very aware of the suffering around our World that is going on for His Name's sake, countries like Nepal and Turkey, that are still very hostile to His Word and His message, and they are very cruel to those who follow Christ.  We subscribe to The Voice of the Martyrs magazine, and we receive updates about the ongoings of these various persecutions.  (http://www.persecution.com/)
The Lord woke me at 5AM today in order to come write this brief post about how truly important it is to store God's Word in your heart.  I want to share an exerpt from our lesson as well as a couple of songs I intend to have our class meditate on this morning (if it will allow me to add a sound clip!)

Sacred Travels: Recovering the Practice of Pilgrimage by Christian George, pgs 151-152:
Before the iron grip of Communism had lifted from Romania, Christians had to worship beneath the cloak of secrecy.  Bibles were burned, Christians were killed, and persecution ravaged the church.  In those days, being a Christian was a costly thing.  Often soldiers broke into the home of a Christian family and shot the family members one by one, leaving only the children to remember the high price of bearing the name of Christ.
In one Romanian village, a group of Christians refused to let their faith be defused; they smuggled a Bible into their village.  If discovered, they would face death, but they were willing to take that risk.  Since the village had only one Bible, each family tore a page from it and committed it to memory.  After savoring every word, learning every line, and internalizing every story, the pages were burned and the evidence destroyed.
Every week those families came together to worship God in one of their homes.  Disguised as a simple meal, these dinners were a time of spiritual refreshment and encouragement.  Each family shared with the others the content of their pages.  Some had a page from Genesis, others from Amos, others from Daniel, and still others from Luke.  Meal by meal, month by month, year by year, the Christians of that Romanian village absorbed the truth of the Bible one page at a time, and eventually they convered the entire spectrum of the Scriptures.  The body of Christ, though in hiding, was nourished, healthy and growing.
After reading the exerpt, I was forced to think about the state or level of committment to Christ in our family.  Yes, we read our Bibles, we have devotions, just about everything done in or around our house we have tried to do biblically, but have we shown our kids the depth of who Christ is? If someone came into our house, killed Shane and I and left our kids to remember the price to be paid for being a follower of Christ, would they pick up the Bible and continue to love Him or would they turn and run?  Lord willing it will never come down to that question, but that doesn't change the fact that the kids (as well as adults) need to not only know what the Scriptures say, they need to absorb what it means, internalize it, be willing to live it consistantly, regardless of what is put in our paths.

This is the Greatest Commandment from the Seeds of Purpose CD.  It is literal Scripture put to song, we can all memorize a song, but we complain we cannot memorize Scriptures.  This eliminates that excuse.  These CDs can be found at http://www.seedsfamilyworship.net/
This next song is from the Seeds of Praise CD Zephania 3:17 

Well, I don't think it is going to allow me to add just a sound clip, maybe if I can figure out how to do it later I can add it in!  Be on the look out though, I will try to add it to my facebook page!  Have a blessed Sunday!

2 comments:

  1. Hey Jennifer!
    Great lesson today! God is so perfect in his timing and stepping on toes. Just to let you know, anyone with iTunes can download the albums for $9.99 an album or $.99 a song!

    Jessica

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awesome! Thanks for the info, Jessica!

    ReplyDelete