Resources for Incorporating the Bible into our Daily Lives

As Meagan has shown us in the previous post, there are a variety of ways for you to be intentional in your study of the Bible and biblical truths. As we all know, unless we are deliberate and intentional about studying the Bible and meditating on God's word, our sinful nature will allow it to become an afterthought at best. Below are a few of my favorite resources to help me incorporate the Bible into every facet of my life.

An Approach to the Extended Memorization of Scripture--A shameless 'plug' for my pastor and his amazing Scripture memorization techniques! This booklet is a guide for memorizing long passages of Scripture. Honest confession: I have not used this method myself, but that is simply because of my laziness. Many people have, and find it incredibly helpful. Personally, I am greatly blessed by a pastor who has a large portion of the Bible memorized, and who can apply it easily within a sermon or daily conversation!

Truth and Grace Memory Books--I think I have mentioned these books before in a comments section somewhere, but I wanted to highlight them here. These workbooks give you suggested hymns, scriptures, and catechism questions for each age, starting at age 2/3. The catechism questions are included in the back of the book. Each age 'builds' upon the other, by adding verses to the hymns, or memorizing longer passages of Scripture. *Note: I think it is important for children and adults to memorize both individual verses and entire passages of Scripture. The individual verses help convey truths and lessons ("Children obey your parents"), while longer passages allow you to grasp the big picture of Scripture*

Seeds Family Worship--Several of us POH authors have these CDs and love them. Each album has a 'theme', i.e., the Power of Encouragement, and all of the songs are scripture verses from that theme. As an adult who gets really irritated by kid's music, I actually enjoy Seeds! There is usually a male or female adult 'lead singer' with kids singing along, and the songwriting is of good musical quality (as opposed to sounding like nursery rhymes or something)

Robert Murray M'Cheyne's Bible Reading Plan--If you need a good Bible reading plan, I highly recommend using this one. It has two 'sections', the "Family" and "Secret" readings, so you can read portions of the Bible for your quiet time ("Secret") and your family worship time ("Family"). If you do that, you will read through the OT once and the NT twice in one year. Or you can choose to read just the "Family" or "Secret" readings, and you will read through the OT in two years and the NT in one.

For the Love of God, vol. 1 and For the Love of God, vol.2--These two books by D.A. Carson are meant to go along with the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan above. Each volume has a devotional thought that is gleaned from the daily Bible reading schedule, and will help you go a little deeper in your studies.

My last thought is to encourage you to incorporate a family worship time into your schedule. This does not have to be anything fancy or elaborate, but both you and your children will be greatly blessed by the time spent together as a family reading God's word and praying together. Our family has made a concerted effort to have REGULAR family worship times together in the past several months, and that has been a huge blessing to all of us. Please share with us your thoughts and suggestions for studying God's word and making it a regular part of our lives!