One of the great joys in my life is studying God’s word through an in-depth Bible study called Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). During a recent BSF lesson, we studied Matthew 13, which includes the Parable of the Hidden Treasure. As I read over my notes, a section stuck out that I starred and highlighted:

“Feasting on God’s blessings but failing to pour out into others causes us to grow spiritually fat, but not faithful … Are you bringing out those treasures and sharing with others the rich investment God has deposited in you? … Do you realize how much treasure you have? What will you do with what you have learned …?”

Bible Study Fellowship, Notes from Lesson 14

One of the greatest treasures I have is God’s word. The Bible study lesson, along with my personal notes, challenged me to ask, “Am I growing ‘spiritually fat’ by feasting on God’s word but never exercising my faith and applying my knowledge and sharing it with others?”

As I pondered that question, the Holy Spirit reminded me of some of the recent ways I’ve been inspired to share my faith. I hope it will inspire you to explore your own ways as you are led by the Holy Spirit. 

1. Text a friend or family member an encouraging verse.

We’re surrounded by so much negativity and everyday trials can be burdensome. When I get discouraged, I turn to God’s word to uplift and encourage me. There are some go-to verses that remind me of God’s presence and power and I cling to His promise that He will never leave or forsake me (Deuteronomy 31:8). 

I put them in my “Notes” on my smartphone so I can access them easily when I’m going through a difficult time.

You can do the same thing when a friend or family member is having a bad day or has received some bad news. Look up some Bible verses to encourage them. Google “encouraging Bible verses,” and you’ll be surprised at how many you’ll find. 

Isaiah 55:11 tells us that God’s word never returns void so know that the word you share will be a blessing to the recipient. Both BibleGateway and Bible Hub are some wonderful resources to look up scripture, and their Apps make it even easier to share verses by text or email, for example.

Here are just a few of my go-to verses of encouragement.

What are some of your “lifeline” verses to remind you of God’s goodness, faithfulness and love to you? I encourage you to have them ready and recall them on your phone or even on a sticky note throughout your house or workplace (if appropriate) as a visual reminder. Visual cues can be powerful reminders in our distraction-filled world, especially if we’re trying to correct a bad habit or negative thinking.

2. Send a birthday gift of a Bible verse or a prayer.

Tuck a Bible verse or scripture reference into your birthday card. You can also do this digitally. I’ve found some great scriptures for birthdays from these websites HERE and HERE. Have you ever gifted someone with a written prayer? It’s such a powerful and thoughtful way to share your faith with them. 

What’s even more powerful is using the audio feature on your phone and recording a short prayer and sending it to them. Your audible voice is a wonderful way to connect personally with someone you want to encourage.

3. Spend some time memorizing scripture.

To help me with Nos. 1-2 above, I’m trying to be better about memorizing scripture. When you commit to memorizing scripture, God’s word fills your mind and heart so that when you undergo a problem or trial in your life (or even something wonderful), the Holy Spirit will bring to mind more quickly those verses you’ve memorized. Don’t you think it’s funny that we’ll often recall countless trivial details of a celebrity’s life but when it comes to pouring our energy into memorizing God’s word, we struggle? I’ve been convicted of that lately. Memorizing God’s word is an eternal treasure. 

Scripture memorization is something I’m not very good at, but I’ve challenged myself to get better as my youngest daughter recently joined the Bible Drill class at our church. Bible Drill is an amazing program taught by one of the most dedicated and faithful children’s leaders at our church (thank you Miss Sheila!). Even if we commit to learning one verse every couple of weeks for a year, that’s 26 verses that we didn’t know before. Scripture memorization is a wonderful way to hide God’s word in our heart so that we will not sin against Him (Psalm 119:11).

4. Pray scripture for prayer needs.

I’m involved in several prayer groups and sometimes when a prayer request is shared, I will search for a verse in the Bible that corresponds with the prayer request (a Bible concordance can make this easier). For example, if a friend is sick or recovering from a surgery, I’ll find a scripture or passage on healing in the Bible and either pray that verse for the person or claim that promise and blessing for them.

5. Invite people to your church or Bible study.

One of the best ways I’ve found to share God’s word with others is to invite them to my church or Bible study group. 

I know it can be intimidating to step out and invite others knowing they may say “No” or they are just not interested. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and bring people to mind who you can encourage or invite. You’ll be amazed at the courage and boldness the Holy Spirit provides (2 Timothy 1:7). The first time you do anything out of your comfort zone is scary, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. 

As you can see, these are some simple yet effective ways that have worked for me to bless and encourage others so that we can shed our “spiritual fat” to exercise our faith more. 

I’m a big believer in taking baby steps when it comes to doing anything new. If you’re a believer who has feasted on God’s blessings but failed to pour out into others, what is a simple way you can shed your “spiritual fat” this week? I’m praying the Holy Spirit will reveal some ideas so that you can start exercising your faith more.

The wonderful Mary Whelchel of The Christian Working Woman ministry is a virtual spiritual mentor of mine. While I’ve never met her in person, I look forward to her Monday-Friday devotionals in my Inbox each week. I gobble them up like my favorite chocolate chip cookies.

When she asked her readers to think about choosing the word “thankfulness” as their word for the year, I knew I had to at least consider it.

It didn’t take me long to embrace her suggestion, and she pointed me to this verse: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:6-7).

I love the part about “overflowing with thankfulness” because gratitude is one of my personal core values. So often we get caught up in what we don’t have that we overlook what we do have. A regular prayer is, “Lord give me eyes to see what your hand has provided.”

I first learned about selecting a word for the year from the book, My One Word by Mike Ashcraft and Rachel Olsen recommended by Mary Whelchel. It’s a terrific read worth your time. Mike is a senior pastor of a megachurch in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Rachel Olsen is a member of his congregation, author, and also serves as a national speaker with Proverbs 31 Ministries. Mike first developed the process on how to choose your one word for the year to think, pray and meditate on for his church:

“Choose just one word that represents what you most hope God will do in you, and focus on it for an entire year. This single act will force clarity and concentrate your efforts. As you focus your word over an extended period of time, you position yourself for God to form your character at a deep, sustainable level. Growth and change will result.” The book walks you through a variety of steps and reflections to guide you in choosing your one word, along with selecting a key verse that corresponds with your word.

I never realized until recently the reason Psalms is my favorite book of the Bible is because it’s brimming with so many instances of David’s heart of thankfulness and praise.

One of the reasons I decided to focus on thankfulness as my word of the year is I wanted to cultivate a greater sense of gratitude in my life. When you’re in a state of thankfulness, you choose to focus on the good things rather than the negative things in your life. After the pandemic, and living through so many challenges that it brought – not to mention the everyday trials of life – it’s so easy to whine and complain about what’s not going right.

But choosing thankfulness forces us to focus our eyes on things that are going right, which is contrary to our normal thought life – at least for me. Without the Holy Spirit directing us, our minds automatically go to things that are negative, worst-case scenarios. We may often see the “giants” or problems in our lives bigger than God Himself like 10 of the 12 spies did in Numbers 13-14. Only two of the spies – Joshua and Caleb – saw God bigger than the giants, and as a result, they were the only two people from their generation to enter the Promised Land. 

By choosing thankfulness, I’m going to focus my mind on the charge from Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” 

There is irony in me choosing thankfulness at this time in my life. As I write this, every member of our family is walking through a personal trial as we’ve never encountered before. Thankfulness would probably be one of the last words I would choose to meditate on right now. But isn’t that just like God – to take our hand and challenge us to trust Him as He leads us through difficult valleys to reveal truths, lessons and insights we wouldn’t have learned other wise?

I know it’s hard to focus on being thankful amidst circumstances that test our faith. But in the few short days of 2022 that I’ve been practicing thankfulness and meditating on that word, God is showing up in ways that encourage and remind me He sees our family and what we’re walking through. When my autopilot mind races to the negative, the Holy Spirit counters to help me to focus on thankfulness. Almost immediately, my mind starts thanking God and praising Him for all of the good things in my life.

I look forward to God reframing my perspective in 2022 to focus on: 

• Things that are true
• Things that are noble
• Things that are right
• Things that are pure
• Things that are lovely
• Things that are admirable
• Things that are excellent
• Things that are praiseworthy

When you focus on all of those things Philippians 4:8 lists, suddenly a new mindset takes shape, allowing you to choose thankfulness. 

I Thessalonians 5:18 challenges us to be thankful – always: Whatever happens, it says, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do. 

Won’t you join me in choosing thankfulness this year?