Week 5 - First Foreshadowing of the Gospel

As I was reading through the notes in my study Bible for this past week, I found something quite interesting pertaining to Genesis 3:15 - "And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heal." In the original Hebrew, "offspring" is translated "seed". Jesus is referred to as "the seed" many times in the Bible, and I don't doubt that this could very well be the first. A long way down the road, I know, but it makes sense. God caused hostility between Satan and the human race (Eve, the mother of all who live, v. 20), and ultimately between Satan and Jesus. "He will strike your head" could refer to the point at which Jesus rose from the grave - a death blow to Satan's power - whereas, "and you will strike his heal" refers to Jesus's death - excruciatingly painful, but not an end in itself, full of hope.

I thought that this was a very beautiful and poetic way to introduce the gospel at the very start of all life, right when the beginnings of the future were coming into play.

The first piece on the chess board of the gospel had been placed, and the story of Christ's redeeming love had begun. Here is  proof early on that God knows what he's doing, that he is sovereign, and knows what is going to happen. This is of great encouragement to me in my daily life - even if I completely screw everything up, he has got a redeeming plan because he loves the living daylights out of me. Hallelujah!

Day 36

Genesis 3:16

16Then he said to the woman, "I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you."

Day 35

Genesis 3:14-15

14Then the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you will be cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. 15And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heal."

Day 34

Genesis 3:12-13

12He replied, "It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it." 13Then the LORD God asked the woman, "What have you done?" "The serpent deceived me," she replied. "That's why I ate it."

Day 33

Genesis 3:9-11

9Then the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10He replied, "I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked. 11"Who told you that you were naked?" the LORD God asked. "Have you eated from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?"

Day 32

Genesis 3:7-8

7At that moment, their eyes were opened, and they were suddenly shamefull at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. 8When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the LORD God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees.

Creation in the Psalms

I was reading in the Psalms today, and was happily surprised by what I found in chapter 33:

6 The Lord merely spoke,

      and the heavens were created.

   He breathed the word,

      and all the stars were born.

 7 He assigned the sea its boundaries

      and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.

 8 Let the whole world fear the Lord,

      and let everyone stand in awe of him.

 9 For when he spoke, the world began!

      It appeared at his command.

I enjoy how the first two chapters of Genesis are a unique parallel, emphasizing different aspects of God's character in each account, but I love David's presentation of creation - he put some thought into it! It shows how utterly awesome God is, and how amazing creation actually was. Very descriptive.

Day 31

Genesis 3:6

6The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

Day 30

Genesis 3:4-5

4"You won't die!" the serpent replied to the woman. 5"God knows your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will become like him, knowing both good and evil."

Day 29

Genesis 3:2-3

2"Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden," the woman replied. 3"It is only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, 'You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.'"

Day 28

Genesis 2:25; 3:1

25Now the man and his wife were naked, but they felt no shame.

1The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?"

Day 27

Genesis 2:23-24

23"At last!" the man exclaimed. "This one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh! She will be called 'woman' because she was taken from 'man.'" 24This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

Day 26

Genesis 2:21-22

21So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the LORD God took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. 22The LORD God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

Day 25

Genesis 2:20

20He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But there was still no helper just right for him.

Day 24

Genesis 2:18-19

18Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a partner who is just right for him." 19So the LORD God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to them man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one.

Day 23

Genesis 2:15-17

15The LORD God placed the man he had made in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. 16But the LORD God warned him, "You may freely eat of every tree in the garden - 17except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die."

Day 22

Genesis 2:13-14

13The second branch, called the Gihon, flowed around the entire land of Cush. 14The third branch, called the Tigris, flowed east of the land of Asshur. The fourth branch is called the Euphrates.

Week 4 - Mental Real Estate

Wow! Three weeks already. It doesn't seem like it's been that long. And soon to be a month! This is so cool. (I'm still pretty psyched about this whole project.) Here are a few fun things I learned this morning: 1) The Hebrew word for "man" is very similar to the word for "dirt", 2) The Bible is not very clear as to whether springs came up from the ground or if it was mist or...? All we know is that God had put some sort of irrigation system in place to water all of the plants, and 3) 194 yards of 2-inch wide packing tape laminates exactly 28 sticky notes (plus a few mess-ups). Yippee! Time to go shopping. I think I'm going to get some different-colored sticky notes too, once I run out. I think I still have another month's worth of the orange left though.

Something else I was thinking about this morning was the reason I am doing this.

 I've talked about the long-term goal of memorizing the entire Bible in forty-some years, but not so much the short-term goal. That is, filling up my otherwise empty thought space with God's word.

Fixing my thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable - things that are excellent and worthy of praise, as Philippians 4:8-9 says. I've experimented with memorization before with Radicalis, a group of people from my church, and one thing we all said at the end of the one-month period was that it helped us focus our thoughts when our minds began to wander. Paired with fasting, it was a powerful tool for our hearts, helping us to remember God at every moment throughout the day.

After memorizing for a few weeks now, I have realized once again that I have given a huge portion of my mental real estate to mindless wanderings and meaningless strands of thought. So I am encouraged - even if this project utterly fails because of laziness on my part, or a life-changing upheaval of my world rendering me unable to memorize or spend any time with the Lord (although I realize the former is much more likely) - that this is beneficial for my Spirit, and that my mental time is spent much more wisely. And so I will run the race set before me - step by step, moment by moment, living life with the Lord.

Day 21

Genesis 2:10-12

10A river flowed through the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches. 11The first branch, called the Pishon, flowed around the entire land of Havilah, where gold is found. 12The gold of that land is exceptionally pure; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there.

Day 20

Genesis 2:8-9

8Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. 9The LORD God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground - trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

He Makes Me Lie Down

This week has been crazy busy for me. Ridiculously busy. Not in a bad way, just... busy. So I haven't done my verses for the past two days. The result: I woke up this morning groaning because I would have to memorize seven verses today. Seven! In one day! Impossible.

Or not.

I was busy all morning, and subsequently put it off until I got to work at Price Cutter around three o'clock. I would work for five hours - one of the shortest days I've had since I began working there. It ended up not only being the shortest amount of time I've worked, but the easiest and slowest time I've ever experienced there. I was probably not busy doing anything during two of my five hours, plus two fifteen minute breaks. So basically, even during all of my busyness, God gave me time to work on something that was important to my heart. I had my note cards in my pocket and was able to memorize those seven verses no problem. Praise the Lord!

This made me think of Psalm 23, where David says, "He leads me beside still waters, he makes me to lie down in green pastures, he restores my soul."

A lot of times, I will deliberately not choose to rest myself, even when I most need it. I, like a sheep, will run myself 'til I literally fall asleep from exhaustion. This is why I need a God who makes me rest. He makes me lie down. I don't have a choice. 

Amen... and thank you, Lord!

Day 19

Genesis 2:7

7Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person.

Day 18

Genesis 2:4-6

4This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5neither wild plants nor grain were growing on the earth. For the LORD God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil. 6Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land.

Day 17

Genesis 2:1-3

1So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. 2On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. 3And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.

Day 16

Genesis 1:31

31Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.

Then God said...

Today I was sitting on the couch, looking out the window, enjoying the quiet, when my eyes wandered to the sun shining on the beautiful trees outside. And I began to think about how the leaves soak up the sunlight and use its energy to create and to reproduce and to grow and to live, and all of the incredible processes that take place to accomplish those things, most of them too small to see with the naked eye. How the living cells travel up and down through the plants, how the chloroplasts create chlorophyll, giving the leaves their color, how something so large as a tree could be formed by something as small as cells, the incredible complexity of it all... And as I thought all of this, one overhanging idea rung in my mind: God made it all just by speaking a simple phrase. "Let the land sprout with vegetation - every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came." And that is what happened. And I imagined all of the trees and plants sprouting up all over the earth. Amazing.

Day 15

Genesis 1:29-30

29Then God said, "Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground - everything that has life." And that is what happened.

Format

The format of a task or project is extremely important to its accomplishment. I came up with a format for memorizing the Bible that works very well for me, so I thought I'd share it, especially for those of you wanting to get on board with this.

On Monday, I sit down with my Bible, sticky notes, packing tape, scissors, and a pen, and set to work. I read through the chapter(s) from which I'm memorizing, then make my note cards for the week. (I write the verses on sticky notes, laminate them with the tape, and trim the edges.) This usually takes about an hour, which is why I do it on Mondays (it's my longest day off of work). I usually mark small numbers for the beginnings of verses so that I can separate them if I have more than one verse on a card (usually I do one card for each day, so this is fairly common), and write the reference on the back so I can quiz myself later. Then I just keep the card for the day in my pocket and look at it several times a day to memorize it.

At the end of the week, on Sunday night, I sit down with some paper and a pencil and write everything I memorized that week. It helps to cement it in my mind, and lets me see if I need to fix any punctuation or other mistakes. Then I grab my study Bible and read through the passage and all of the notes that go along with it. This enlightens me to new ideas and hidden Hebrew connotations I otherwise would not have known about. The best part about the end of the week though, is closing my eyes, and slowly whispering that week's verses, imagining every word vividly taking place with God's glorious hand in all of it. This is when the scriptures come alive for me.

I'm sure it's different for everyone, but when I picture God separating the waters, pulling clouds from the ocean, mist filling the air, water droplets scattering, to create the sky, I find myself in utter awe and wonder at the Lord.

So far, this format has worked great for me. Finishing on Sunday nights helps my heart prepare for what is to come the next morning - a new week's worth of verses - and reminds me of all that I have learned. I'm sure this format will slowly change and evolve as this project progresses, but for the beginning stages, it's absolutely sufficient.

Day 14

Genesis 1:27-28

27So God made human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28Then God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground."

Day 13

Genesis 1:26

26Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground."

Day 12

Genesis 1:24-25

24Then God said, "Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind - livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals." And that is what happened. 25God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.

Day 11

Genesis 1:22-23

22Then God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply. Let the fish fill the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth." 23And evening passed and morning came, marking the fifth day.

Day 10

Genesis 1:20-21

20Then God said, "Let the waters be filled with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind." 21So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird - each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.

Day 9

Genesis 1:17-19

17God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, 18to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And evening passed and morning came, marking the fourth day.

Day 8

Genesis 1:16

16God made two great lights - the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars.

In the Beginning...

In the beginning, before anything - anything! - existed, God was there. In a moment, he created all of the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and not a fraction of life emanated from its depths. Darkness, evil, covered the deep, black waters that enveloped the earth. Utterly empty. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the entire surface of the waters. Waiting. Breathing. Considering. He knew what it needed. Then God whispered, "Let there be light." And in an instant, there was light.  And God saw that the light was absolutely good for the earth. He brought light into an excruciatingly dark, chaotic, abyss of a world.


This is what happens when you memorize. You think about it. You understand it. God reveals what He has done to you. And you begin to see how marvelous the Bible is. Did this remind you of the New Testament? Now do you see why I'm so excited?

Beginning of Week Two

This is exciting. I am excited. I always enjoyed AWANA, but this is like AWANA on steroids! Beginning my second week, I've already memorized fifteen verses with ease. It excites me that I can fill an 8.5x11" sheet of paper with words from the Bible, the wonders of God. I think starting with creation was an excellent choice, because it's getting me revved up on how awesome God is. Bring it on!

Day 7

Genesis 1:14-15

14Then God said, "Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark seasons, days, and years. 15Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth. And that is what happened.

Day 6

Genesis 1:12-13

12The land sprouted with vegetation - all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 13And evening passed and morning came, marking the third day.