I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you . . . . I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words. ( Psalm 119:11, 147 )

About three or four months ago I read a little booklet by John MacArthur called Found: God’s Will that really lit a fire under me. As you can probably deduce by the title, the book is about finding “the direction and purpose God wants for your life.” In about 55 pages he presents six principles that help you to know what God’s will is for your life — what direction to take in everything that you do.

My focus is on the second principle, which is that you must be Spirit-filled. This is an “easy” step because it follows right on his first which is that you must be saved. Once you have received Christ His Spirit comes to dwell in you. However, it is more than that. Living a Spirit-filled life is not just some emotional, energized 24/7 experience; it requires work. Ephesians 5:18-33, 6:1-9 includes a list of how we are to live if we are filled with the Spirit. It speaks of singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, making music and giving thanks to God and interpersonal relationships between husbands and wives, fathers and children, servants and masters. Colossians 3 has the same theme only “here Paul does not link such living to the filling of the Spirit. He says that it is the result of letting ‘the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom’.” For me, personally, this was the real starting point. In this section Dr. MacArthur shared how he studies the Bible.

One day he sat down and read the book of 1 John straight through from beginning to end. Too often we like to read snippets and bits and pieces of a book each day to get through the Bible in a year or six months or two years or pick-your-timeframe. This is good for getting an overall feel for the Bible, but this isn’t how it was written. “The books of the Bible weren’t written as an assortment of good little individual verses. They were written with flow and context.” Reading a whole book, or a good portion of a book, in one sitting is the best way to preserve and understand the flow and context of the whole. On day two Dr. MacArthur sat down and read 1 John from beginning to end, again. He did the same on days three through thirty, reading the whole book each day. What a radical concept. Okay, maybe not too radical to some, but it really opened my eyes. As you know, I like to get from point A to point B with as few interruptions as possible and as quickly as possible. In this case, point A is Genesis and point B is Revelation and I want to get from here to there in about a year. Using this method of reading the Bible, if you were able to read one book per month, it would take 66 months to get through the entire Bible. Five and a half years! Hokey Smokes! After 1 John he went on to read the Gospel of John. This book he split up into three sections for reading. Three months to read one book! Figuring that there are more books like John (the Gospel) than 1 John, I figure it probably took closer to seven to ten years for Dr. MacArthur to get through the entire Bible.

So, I figure that’s about how long it will take me, too. Today I officially begin the joyous journey of storing up God’s Word in my heart. I don’t want to just get from point A to point B anymore. I’m tired of just reading the Bible and not knowing the Bible. I understand the basics of the Bible well enough and I have a decent understanding of God’s character and His laws, but I need to be armed with the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:17) The interesting thing about the sword of the Spirit, in this context, is that it doesn’t refer to some great broadsword we swing about, hacking off the heads of demons and obliterating sins. Instead it speaks of a short sword — essentially a long dagger — used as more of a weapon for close-combat to target the vital organs of your opponent. So instead of grabbing my Bible to whack Satan over the head, I am to use God’s word to attack individual temptations — just like Jesus in Luke 4:1-13 fought Satan’s temptings using the right verse for the situation.

So, God woke me up at six o’clock this morning and I got up, not only willingly, but joyfully (sorry Mom and Dad, I should have warned you before springing that one on you) and here I sit, having read Psalm 119, which I felt was a fitting beginning to my journey through God’s word.

I truly do want to store up His word in my heart so that I can live a holy life, pleasing to God and that I may shine His light in the world.

God’s working on me, and He’s not finished yet. In many ways I think He’s barely even started.