Guest Post written by Patti Phillips
When my oldest daughter, Ambry, was about four years old, my husband and I first started learning about the importance of confessing the Word of God and getting scripture in us so that we would have it available for us when we needed it.
Each month our children’s church gave us a list of Scriptures to confess (say) with our children to help them begin memorizing. We would say the Scriptures and have our children repeat after us.
Prior to this time, we had a regular bedtime of reading a little Golden Book story and then a Bible story to our daughters. This became a nice bedtime routine along with my husband reading to them about great men of faith like Smith Wigglesworth and E.W. Kenyon. As we would leave the room, we would play a cassette tape of Alexander Scourby reading the New Testament to them while they fell asleep.
We did this for years, and soon we were able to see God’s word and faith in God birthed within their little hearts.
My two daughters, Ambry and Bonnie, would normally play in the kitchen while I was cooking. I had one of the cabinets designated with pots and pans with which they were allowed to play.
One day I was in the kitchen with Ambry; I think Bonnie was napping, and I burned my thumb getting something out of the oven (I had used regular potholders). It was a second degree burn, so it was very painful. Ambry saw that I was in pain and tried to get her dad to help. Unfortunately, he was unavailable.
Without me even asking her, she reached over and closed her little hand around my thumb and said (as only a little four-year old can do), “Be healed in the name of Jesus!” She said it with boldness and confidence.
Immediately, I started seeing the swelling go down. In less than a minute, the swelling and the redness was totally gone. I had seen a miracle with my own eyes! I understood right then and there the importance of hiding the Word in our hearts, and that our faith in the Lord has to be childlike.
Sometimes we make believing in the Bible to be some great mystery that is possible only for a few of us. In Romans 10:17, we read, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (NKJV)
I believe it is our duty to hear the Word of God. By this I mean, putting the Word of God in us, by hiding it in our hearts.
We can do this by reading the Bible, confessing (declaring) Scriptures and promises from the Bible, and even audibly listening to the reading of the Bible. In this day and age, there are many electronic methods which we can employ to get the Word of God in us.
When we do this, we create a deposit from which we can draw–just like from a bank. Luke 6:45 states, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (NKJV)
I have seen time and time again, Ambry and Bonnie employing the Word of God in good times and in times of trials. They have that good treasure in their hearts. I would like to encourage you today to begin depositing that good treasure in your heart and those of your children.
This guest post was written by Patti Phillips, a mother of 2 and grandmother to 5. She spent most of her years teaching English, History and Math to children in middle school and truly had the gift of speaking into the lives of hormonal children stretching to be teens. I know you will be blessed by this story that goes back to our childhood.
