Operation All Of It - Day One

"all Scripture"

2 Timothy 3:16

Well, today was the first day of Operation All Of It.  Yesterday, as I enjoyed singing every verse of the Christmas carols in church, as opposed to just a verse or two, I challenged myself to enjoy the same thing about Scripture passages this month.  When I see a verse, in a devotion, or an email from a friend, I'm going to read the whole chapter from whence that verse came.

{It's the Christmas season... a time to think of days gone by... 

like "the days of yore" and "yesteryear"... 

So I'm celebrating those by using words like "whence".}

My first one was a daily email "Promise" I got when I first got up.  The verse was John 15:10 "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, even as I have obeyed My Father's commands and remain in His love."

A beautiful promise indeed.

But when I enjoyed all of John 15, I also got verse 2:  "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit..." and verse 9: "Now remain in My love..." and verse 15: "everything that I learned from My Father, I have made known to you..." and verse 27: "you have been with me from the beginning..."

Then, about lunchtime, I got a prayer request from a friend, which included Psalm 16:8 ~ "I have set the Lord always before me.  Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken."  Such a firm proclamation of faith in Him!  But when I read all of Psalm 16, I was also reminded that my heart should be glad, and my tongue should rejoice; that He has assigned me my portion and my cup; and that apart from Him I have no good thing.

After lunch I checked my emails, and a friend sent me Psalm 118:24.  I didn't even have to look that one up; it's one of my favorite verses!  "This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!"  {See?  I've known that verse for so long, it's in my head in the King James lingo.}

But the reading of the whole of Psalm 118 also gave me choice tidbits such as: "Give thanks to the Lord, for His is good; His love endureth forever." {Whoops!  KJV again.}  and "The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation."  But it also reminded me of sobering truths such as, "The Lord has chastened me severely, but He has not given me over to death."  And this wonderful visual: "With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar."

In the afternoon I was doing some work on my computer, and I needed to pull up a new tab in my search program.  And the home page I have chosen is a site that illustrates a verse a day.  Today's verse was Ephesians 3:14-15 ~ "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives His name."  This was not a verse I was readily familiar with, so reading the whole chapter gave me some context.  Paul followed that line by saying to the Ephesians, "I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."

That's a beautiful prayer, and I'm glad I noticed it.  But then it's followed by one of the most powerful verses in Ephesians; maybe in the whole Bible ~ "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that this love surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. "

I read four chapter of Scripture today.  They were varied and interesting.  And it was hard to stop what I was doing, and change my thought process by getting out my Bible and reading the chapters I'd been led to.  But it was worth it.  My brain was able to get back to whatever mundane thing I'd been working on, but I took with me what I had just read. 

Give thanks to the Lord, indeed.

~ "All Scripture...

is profitable for doctrine,

for reprove, for correction,

for instruction in righteousness..."

2 Timothy 3:16

~