We Have Access To The Best Search Engine Ever – The Holy Spirit!

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<Jesus said,> “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”’ (John 14:26)

After a long break, such as our Christmas/New Year’s two-week break our MNL Life Group has each year, I cannot remember what the next subject or topic will be that I need to prepare for, after we complete the current subject at hand.  While I have the mind of a steel trap, it occasionally (more often the older I get) gets rusty and sometimes sticks open, and the memories and thoughts escape. Fortunately, I keep all my previous e-mails stored on my laptop so I can retrieve the data I send out.  Through those e-mails, I remind myself we are going into Acts after the completion of our current lesson, just as I planned and promised (but couldn’t remember).

As I’ve mentioned before, I can remember many verses, stories and the general history of the Bible, but I often can’t tell you the exact book and verse to find them off the top of my head.  Finding some aren’t too difficult (finding items about Jeremiah one goes to, well, Jeremiah). Others come by deducing the name or history of the Books (finding Israel’s and Judah’s kings in either Kings or Chronicles).  We are fortunate to have access to the Internet where we can do a ‘web search’ on ‘Scriptures on <subject desired>’ and find it almost instantaneously. 

You can also go to sites like ‘Blue Letter Bible’ and do a search on a phrase and it will give you the verse or verses and even the version (NKJV, NIV, NASB, etc.) if it is particular to that translation.  It is not necessarily important to remember exactly the Book or verse of a particular scripture, although if you can do that for key verses when witnessing (John 3:16, John 14:6, Romans 3:23, Jeremiah 29:11, etc.) that is good so it can be pointed out that it indeed is in the Bible and where it is stated. 

What is important to remember is what God is telling you and write that on your heart; ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’, ‘Go to the ends of the earth and make disciples’, ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’. Remembering God’s care for His chosen and his wrath when they forgot and turned away from Him – the Biblical truths and the Gospel truth that Jesus is our Savior is what is needed for recall, rememberence and recital. 

It is not so important to remember where you read it in the Bible as much as it is to remember what you read in the Bible and remember it so it doesn’t become twisted (‘God helps those who helps themselves‘ is NOT in the Bible, for example).  Don’t fret that you can’t be like Denzel Washington in the movie Book of Eli, who memorized the Bible word for word, verse for verse, cover to cover.  Like me, it’s OK to use references and historical documents to help you remember.  There’s also another way to remember and reference what the Scriptures say…

Jesus was talking to His Twelve Apostles when He spoke these words.  Jesus knew over the course of His ministry He spoke of many things, and the Apostles probably didn’t write everything (or anything) down (and they didn’t have Dictaphones to record His teachings) while Jesus was on His earthly ministry.  The Gospels were written at least twenty years after Jesus’ Ascension (in 29 AD, forty days after His Resurrection) so all of it had to be done by memory.  The writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John came from the recollections they and others had while witnessing the events surrounding Jesus and the actions Jesus performed.  Fortunately, they had access to the top ‘Spiritual search engine’, the Holy Spirit, that provided them with exactly the details needed to complete each of their Gospels. 

While there are slight differences in some of the order of activities, the Gospels all correspond and support each other to a ‘tee’.  The differences often have to deal with personal viewpoints.  Think of an intersection where an accident occurs; on each corner of the intersection a person sees the accident happen.  Each person sees the same accident from their viewpoint so while it is the same accident their aspects are slightly different, but together you have a complete picture of Jesus’ life and ministry on earth. 

We also have access to the Holy Spirit, to use Him as our ‘Spiritual search engine’; we learn the Word and remember what we learn for the specific task at hand.  If you’re balancing the checkbook you need your math skills but won’t need what you learned about geometry, for example, but you may need to know (more to the point – recollect) geometry when you’re build a wooden frame for a picture to cut 45-degree angles. For geometry, we may refer to a reference book, or the internet to gain the proper geometric calculations to properly build the frame.

The Holy Spirit aids us to provide the right scripture for the right moment, even if you can’t remember the book or verse it comes from.  Sometimes the Holy Spirit provides us the Truth not specifically written down in the Scriptures; Paul was writing his letters based off of what the Holy Spirit was leading him to write specifically for the group he was writing to.  Don’t have a verse handy for a particular situation?  Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the words you need, even to defend yourself and your Faith (Luke 12:11-12 – look it up!).