I remember when I was about 9 I read the book Mary Jones and her Bible for school & how this little girl around my own age, had saved up and walked for days to purchase their own copy of the Bible so that she didn’t have to just write it out and bring bits home from school and how excited her family was to get their very own Bible.

I guarantee though that because of the time she spent writing it out, she had hidden valuable treasures in her heart.

Some historians state that when an Old Testament Israelite King died, the first thing his son had to do when taking the throne was to write out with his own hand the book of the law for three reasons: 1 so that they would fear the Lord, 2, so that they would not become proud and 3 so that they and their children, by adhering to the first two, would have long lives.

They certainly had to at least have a copy of it.

The Bible laid out ways to prosper, eg live well from a personal life to a nation, and forbade child sacrifice to gods, that many other nations were involved in. If you feel that there is a lot of murder and killing at God’s directive, history shows that often those people groups were involved in bestiality.

Teachers say that one of the best ways for children to learn is copy work. Writing helps us to remember.

Writing helps us to access the promises by becoming aware of them and remembering them. It’s one way to hide the Word in our hearts.

Joshua was told when entering the promised land:

Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth.

It had valuable instructions on how to live their lives and all the blessings that God wanted to give them.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, & is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).

We are so blessed to have such free access to the Word of God, but sometimes we are the ones guiltiest of valuing it the least.

In 2009, the Center for Biblical Engagement issued a report that concluded that people who read the Bible at least four days a week experienced the following benefits:

…statistical analyses reveal that, controlling for other factors, such as age, gender, church , and prayer, Christians who are engaged in scripture most days of the week have lower odds of participating in these behaviors:

• Getting drunk = 57% lower odds

• Sex outside marriage = 68% lower odds

• Pornography = 61% lower odds

• Gambling = 74% lower odds

The Bible provides light to our path, proving which way will lead to life not strife; the Proverbs in particular.

It offers wisdom on financial affairs, the importance of a good work ethic yet the balance of not striving to be rich but having the wisdom to show restraint. Proverbs 23:4

I remember waking up one morning and I knew as I rolled over to look at the clock that it was going to be 4:12. I did study the spiritual significance of those numbers and studied some of the Scriptures that lived at the reference and Hebrews 4:12 was one of them.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

The Word of God can reach far into places deep inside us, our emotions and our body. Back in that time I don’t think there was anything that divided between bone and marrow; now in hospitals a laser can in some cases reach to treat disease that begins in that place, the place where blood begins.

I heard a story this week of the incredible reach of God’s Word. Randy Clark, a healing evangelist, had called out that he felt God was healing someone of a very specific injury to the leg/ankle and went on to give incredible detail about it, detail he could have only known from God.

A young man in the congregation went, oh my gosh that is the exact injury my aunt had last year and sent her a text message. The next morning the aunt woke up in a different city healed and had no idea why, just shocked that she was healed. And then she turned on her phone and found the text message from her nephew about the word of knowledge given.

That’s an incredible testimony around the Scripture, ‘He sent His Word and healed their disease.’ Ps 107:20

Psalm 103 says forget not all His benefits, see God has laid out, even in the first half of the Old Testament how we wants to bless those who follow Him. Forgiveness, health, redemption, restoration being only a few of the ways.

Another Scripture I love is: Your Word revives me and gives me life Ps 119:50

Psa 119:50 This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me. STRONGS DEFINITION FOR QUICKENED: to live, whether literally or figuratively; causatively to revive: – keep (leave, make) alive, X certainly, give (promise) life, live, nourish up, preserve (alive), quicken, recover, repair, restore (to life), revive, (X God) save (alive, life, lives), X surely, be whole.

Romans 12:2 says that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind. That word transform is like the supernatural transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. Looking nothing like what we did before.

God is calling His people to a deeper understanding of His Word in this hour. The word renews our minds so that we are transformed, which is the Greek word metamorphoo, from a frumpy caterpillar to a completely different creature, a beautiful butterfly.

Generous Portion by Cageless Birds

saw a prophetic picture of a young tree with good structure just about to bud and as the leaves budded they were actually cursive letters.
Cursive is almost a deeper language of the original language.
As you begin to read the Bible and lay those good foundations in your life, there is a deeper language to Scripture just as there is cursive in English. With cursive you can link letters together, and as we read more and more in the Word so many concepts from the Old and New Testament begin to link together. Even plain truths look beautiful written in cursive, and you can write faster in cursive than in plain print.

Another thing the living tree reminded me of was of how Caroline Leaf talks about good healthy thoughts are visible in our brains as like living trees, where as dark negative thoughts are like a barren landscape with dead trees sticking up.
But our brains have the ability to be rewired by choosing to consistently replace negative thoughts with healthier ones.
Rewiring our brains with Scripture is one way to have healthy thoughts. Isn’t it interesting that God knew back when the Bible was being written what thoughts looked like under the microscope, and He regularly compared righteous people to flourishing trees?
Psalm 1
Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.

Discipline shows off what the Word of God can truly do in a life – Carrie Pickett