Day 5 of Basic Training...How to Prevent the Word from being Dead in Your Head

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Have you ever felt like you were just reading, but not really relating to the Lord?

I sure have. But several years ago I found a great way to prevent the intake of God’s word from just being dead in my head. It’s prayer reading. It’s so simple. Hopefully, you’ve already enjoyed doing such. This will be a great practice to pass on to your future protégés and also share with loved ones. Let’s take a short passage to illustrate prayer reading- Proverbs 2:1-6. Here’s how it reads from the NIV-

My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,

turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding—

indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,

and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,

then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Now here’s how you can personalize it and turn it into prayer reading-

Heavenly Father, I thank you that I am your son whom you want to mentor. What a privilege! I am your son whom you love. Your word reveals your best way for me.

So I will accept your words; O may I never reject them.

I will store up your commands within my heart. I’m doing that with my MP3 cards with my brothers. This has been such a blessing.

I will turn my ear to wisdom. Jesus, in you are all the treasures of wisdom.

I will apply my heart to understanding. And I also ask your help to do so.

Yes, I call out to you for insight and understanding. For I need your help. Sure, I can learn a lot of facts through prayerless study. But to make your truths live in my life requires you. Please forgive the many times I’ve settled more for content than communion.

Help me to look, not only for understanding, but for you. For Lord, you are more precious than silver. I will search for you and your ways in your word as for hidden treasure. Jesus you are the treasure hidden throughout the Older Testament and you are in open view in the New.

Thank you Lord for your promise that my searching will not be in vain. I will find you and understand the fear of the Lord.

Yet Lord, I admit that I still feel like a pilgrim on the far edges of the land. I see you, but only from a distance. But thank you Lord, one day it will be face to face.  

So prayer reading involves-personalizing the pronouns, praying it back to God, admitting when we fall short of the standard, asking for his forgiveness and help, seeking Christ as the hidden treasure, claiming his promises and praising him.

1.- Now it’s your turn to prayer read. Read anywhere within the first 9 chapters of Proverbs and take only one, two or a few verses and write and post your personalized prayer. No one is grading you. You’ll do fine. Try it, you’ll like it!

2.- Pick one of the verses you especially liked or even a phrase from it and write it on your MP3 card (or your smart phone version of such). Just write "Did It" when you did it. Then seek to review it throughout the day, reflecting on it and praying to God regarding it. This is the way we can commune with God in his word day and night as we saw in Josh.1:8. 

Go to the Scoreboard and-
Pu in the total number of times you shared your MP3 card with others since you blogged yesterday. This goes in column G- MP3

R.-? Any wrong you sought to Right since last blog? We're right proud of you for seeking to do such.

Congratulations on finishing your first week of Basic Training. 
We've begun by focusing on the vital priority of connecting with God through his word. We will introduce a second vital priority connected to it next week. 

So what about the weekends? Saturdays and Sundays you can certainly read anywhere you wish. (Of course, that's true any day.) But Sundays we will bless our pastor by making his passage our M3 passage that day. Bring your Bible and pick out a verse or phrase that grabs you and add it to your MP3 card. Want to earn brownie points with your pastor? Show him your MP3 card after the service and explain how you're using it.

On Sundays you'll also see posted on our blog the week's GDP (Growing Deeper Project). This will greatly help you to get a very good handle on the word of God over time.