Quest to Memorize The New Testament

2 Timothy 2:4 "No soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him." Before this post, I updated review methods . Also the last progress update of Romans is in this post ,  haven't written any insights due to this setback... I wish I could say that everyday I have the same level of enthusiasm and it always brings me joy and excitement to do all I have written in my daily schedules. As much as I want to put my mind in the things of the spirit, I could sometimes forget that verse (2 Timothy 2:4), and I could get entangled with a controversy in my day job (which is not profitable as discussed to Titus 3:9, so I better not talk about it here too) - just I have to mention that these kinds of things can succumb my thought life that hinders in this quest. At least now I have a thermometer of my level of peace, if I could not follow my daily plans, there is something wrong and I have to be sober minded and submit myself in pray...

28 Sep 2019 - Saturday I've recorded from Fox TV this movie the 'The Great Wall'. The first time I watched this was when our company has a free movie night - to show courtesy for the effort of the company to bring us together for bonding. I know this movie does not glorify the God I worship and it is a fantasy movie but this reminds me of the real battle Christians are facing. While that movie is war in the natural eyes although its made up, our Christian walk is an unseen battle which takes toll of our real life. So the enemies in the movie were scary 'Tao Tei' - they are like dragon, half crocodile and size of two elephants. They have a queen who gives orders and signals - so similar to the kingdom of Satan, only thing Satan can disguise as an angel of light, well if he looked like these monster he wouldn't easily lure many people. After the initial attack, Matt Damon asked 'will they come back?' the General answered 'yes, all we can do is prepar...

I know that the grace of God covers us and a little watching of TV - it might not affect for most strong Christians out there. I was able to remove my tragic use of Facebook by removing my apps but its different for TV, it is in the living room and we have housemates who loves to watch - of course who doesn't? I had memorized  'I will not set my eyes on anything worthless, it shall not cling to me, I hate the works of those who fall away' Psalms 101:3, but sometimes its just damn hard to go against the current of the flesh, when I am sitting in the living room with real people and they don't share my enthusiasm in the Word but I can find myself sharing to some of what they want to spend their spare time. So I write it down and see when can I ever let go of this obstacle. The reason why I am so strict on myself in terms of watching TV is because (well mostly just a waste of time) based on my experience, even just for a short time like 30 minutes or an ho...

September 3, 2019   I had memorized John 1 to 18 from April to August 2019. However, an issue in my work happened that consumed my thought life. I struggled in my review times, I was looking in my bible but my mind flies. You might be asking, then why not use the "verses" that speaks to "anxiety" to battle off the issue so I could concentrate in my schedule? Yes I do have many "sword of the spirit" in my mind, but sometimes I just have to admit if I let my flesh rule like when I got home tired and stressed, instead of praying and meditating to the source of Life, I try to self-medicate by distracting myself to new tele-series everyone in the house are devouring, then it slips in my mind I am already in the loosing end of the battle. As a result it was about more than a month that I did not follow my review schedules. I didn't feel good that I can't achieve this goal and thanks be to God who helped me to get back to perspective and the issue i...

Feb 2019 Hiatus means a pause or break in an activity. I didn't realized it has happened to me, as if I left in my home and searched an unknown place - nothing but barrenness and dessert without the constant words of God in my memories. Many reasons, like my change of job , change of systems in our company that needs more re-learning, pregnancy, death of a beloved brother in Christ (Bro Henry) who the Lord helped to lead me to him after I became agnostic. Whatever the reasons are, I am glad I realized how is my life without this activity - it is a blessing in disguise and now I know I will do this forever this time as long the Lord gives me life.    It was a while that I paused memorizing and reviewing my memorized books,  about two years (2017-2018). Those times were the most difficult days of my life since I knew our Lord,  because I seem to forgot the hope to which I was called out of my stress in every area o...

I am now 39 weeks on my pregnancy and had my maternity leave. The change in lifestyle of being so free got me so bothered initially. Then I find myself so fond of TV series that our new cable provider have- it was so convenient because it is recorded and I can watch at anytime. Then those I watched cling to me that sometimes I lose sleep and sometimes my desires are being worldly.  Thus I get back to reviewing my memverse and the Word of God lift me up on top of my situation. Now I decided to get back on book memorization. In fact today is my 3rd day in memorizing book of Romans, for I know this book tackles about indwelling sin. This is the dose of my own medicine, thanks be to God and His word and the Holy Spirit who guides us in living in this fallen world.   **Update, this was the post when I am in a struggle to do my memorization and I was in long Hiatus. I am glad to update after two years I was able to get back to memorization and determined to never let ...

May 2017   Its been 3 months since I last posted here. I know I am in the hiatus of memorizing. One reason is my difficult pregnancy - almost 4 months now and always dizzy yet I praise God for this blessings!   One more thing is its now a challenge to keep the books I memorized because of adjustments in my new work with almost no Christian around here, there is only one Christian I know who is not always in our office, he is in the other building. I'm still adjusting seeing people offering and celebrating different many gods and the company culture, usually they don't speak in English but most can only speak local Chinese, so I am usually alienated.    Sometimes I use my little spare time to sit down and watch nonsense things on TV to divert my mind off work, sometimes I use my very little spare time browsing non sense Facebook wall posts. I admit I rarely study the bible and keep me closer to unfruitful works inst...

It has been a long time since I updated my blog. I am doing all I could to hold on to what I already memorized, honestly some had slipped. When my work was changed from full-time to part time seven months ago, my memorization improved so much. It required me more time as I had more things to review but I was so peaceful and makes it easier for me to learn new information. Indeed verses that I memorized helped me so much in times of difficulty. The circumstances have changed recently, my husband may lost his job (though he found a better job after, thanks to God), this circumstance pushed me to find a full time job again. I still have my part time but it cannot sustain all our expenses in Singapore if my husband will be out of job nor pay-off the investments we have started paying. I thought it would be nearly impossible for me to have another job on the same field I am doing, by the way I am an ERP consultant - MS Dynamics AX to be exact. It is because for t...

April 8, 2016 I'm exceedingly glad to update I had finished John’s Gospel, not meaning it is already in my permanent memory, maybe it takes 6 months to a year to do so. I embarked on 1 John and it is not a coincidence that when we meet our elder, he discussed the exact chapters (1 John 1-3), those things I badly need to live upon. Firstly I want to say the Spirit had many times lead us as a church on similar verses and we were surprised when we meet we would brought up the same Scripture portions and would like to study about it. It’s amazing, but it is a supernatural blessedness which is normal in our small church. Our elder show us a YouTube video by Paul Washer titled “Examine Yourself”. I thank God for chastising me through 1 John, He broke me to my knees that I would be sure I had no other hope but Him. This scripture helped me to understand what sin is and how I should declare all-out war against it. 1 John 3:3-6 says “Everyone who hopes in Him purify hims...

After our bible Marathon cum fasting today, I've been thinking about changing my memorization bible from ESV to NKJV, just a try. So far I am working on my 7th book on my 7th month, that is 14% of the NT. This is not an easy decision to make. Considering I had 1,031 memorized verse base on www.memverse.com  and 438+ isolated verse in my AnkiDroid. I've research again why I chose ESV over NKJV despite that our church mainly uses NKJV. Well, the main reason is its readability and that I could not find an audio bible that is in NKJV while ESV had in YouVersion and Bible.Is. Honestly, my heart is so close to ESV as I've started memorizing from it. However, for the sake of the unity of the church, it is wiser for me to use NKJV, they are not too different anyway, just a few words are different in every verse or order of words. Besides if I would continue to memorize in ESV and back and forth sing in NKJV, it takes a lot of work for my mind to remember my ESV since as I sin...

21 December 2015 The changes in my routines and lifestyle has been the fruits of the planted seeds of Words of God in my heart and at the same time, it is the means to make my memorization goals reachable. When I started entire chapter memorizations, that was around April 2015, I was still working as a full time employee. I've tried to walk from office to work and back as well to make the best use of travel time. This might save a little money and good exercise also, and it did worked since I successfully memorized a few psalms without impact to my regular schedule. However, at that time I was still pumping milk for my baby (breastfeeding) and I noticed that my milk production decreased, so I move away from this method. Then when book memorizations was planted in my heart on June 2015, I had to be ruthless on myself. I gave up watching TV on the evening and memorized my first book - James in 2 weeks. Then for the next books, I've chosen to give up my lunch-brea...

There are instances I knew I could have applied a particular verse in a situation but I vented on the weakness of my flesh instead. For example, someone just spoke harsh words to me and I answered in a harsh manner and the other person end up to become even harsher, the verse Proverbs 15:1 and James 1:19 clings my mind but it was too late ( Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger; James 1:19 Be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger). But what is the difference now? I am convicted and not swayed by the deceitfulness of sin. Then I would renew my mind (Romans 12:2 - "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind..") and resolve to have the peace with the person. I noticed as well that usually I would benefit on the verses long after I memorized them, something like when it goes to my veins and bloodstreams that's the time I couldn't help but just use them. I had never regretted all vers...