One of the habits that I've integrated into my daily walk with God is this practice of journaling.
And what I mean by journaling is basically writing down that which I've learned from the Bible that morning.
And this is something that's been very beneficial to me. It's helped me a lot in my Christian growth.
And I want to share with you what it is that I do and the method that I use so that you can integrate into your personal life as well.
And let me start off by saying that there's three reasons why I decided to start journaling.
Number one, which is probably the most important one, is that I wanted to remember that which I read in the Bible that morning.
You know, how many times have you read the Bible in the morning and then you get into a conversation later on in the day,
you know, with a friend or family members or even church members and the topic of Bible reading comes up and you can't remember what you read?
Well, journaling actually helps with that. It actually helps you to recall that which you read that day.
And in fact, studies show that writing by hand activates cognitive activity in your brain.
And sequential hand movements activate large regions of the brain that are responsible for language learning, for thinking and even memory.
And what better thing to remember than that which you read in the Bible that morning.
And so that was one of the reasons why I began journaling is because I wanted to remember that which I read.
But the second reason was because as a young preacher, I wanted to make sure that I had a large library of sermon ideas.
You know, reading your Bible, you get a lot of sermon ideas.
And, you know, journaling what you read out of your Bible basically gives you a synopsis of a biblical thought that you can use and expand to become a sermon.
Obviously, you can get sermon ideas from books.
You know, I get sermon ideas from secular books sometimes or from friends or from other pastors.
But many of the ideas that I get are actually from my personal Bible reading.
And so journaling helps me to basically keep a library of ideas that I can use for future sermons.
And then the third reason why I began journaling was because I wanted to make sure that I had something that I can give to my children.
You know, when I pass away that they can keep and see their father's walk with God.
You know, my wife and I both have journals.
And I think it's just a really neat gift that you can give to your children where they can see that mom and dad walk with God.
They got something out of God's Word.
They were learning and they applied it.
And so I think that's a pretty cool gift that you can give to your children.
And so I have a couple of these that I've kept throughout the years.
And those are the reasons why I began journaling.
Now, you know, I remember when I started journaling, it was really it was it was very beneficial for me when I was a young Christian.
But, you know, I kind of got discouraged and I actually put it on the back burner for a while.
And the reason for that is because my journaling in those days didn't really have any structure.
It wasn't organized.
And because of that, you know, my journaling would be too little or I would write too much.
And if it was too little, I felt like I was doing the journaling under service.
But if it was too much, you know, the next day I would get discouraged because I wasn't writing as much as I wrote the day before.
So because of that, my journaling was actually put on the back burner for a while.
But then I learned a method years ago that really helped me and I began to teach it to others and it helped them as well.
And that's the method that I want to teach you in this video.
It's very easy, very concise, and it'll help you a lot.
Now, this is the book that I use to journal.
I got this at Staples.
I think you get it at Office Depot or you can just get a regular composition book.
Now, in order for your journaling to be effective, there's two elements that you need.
It needs to be concise and it needs to be precise.
Okay.
What I mean by concise is that it can't be too long.
Okay.
I would say it should fill up at least a page.
All right.
And you might think that like that's a lot, but it's really not that much.
And it needs to be precise because of the fact that, you know, if you're not careful, you could just write on and on and on and on and on.
Whereas you need to learn how to basically make a synopsis of the truth that you learned from your Bible reading.
And the method that I'm going to show you will help you to do both.
It'll help it to be concise, but it'll also help it to be precise as well.
Now, an easy way to remember this method is by using the acronym SOAP.
Okay.
S O A P.
And this is very helpful because it helps your journaling to be concise.
But each letter, because this is an acronym, each letter is designed in order to make your journaling precise as well.
And so I'm going to go through it with you just so you understand and so you can implement it in your personal life.
Now, SOAP for me is very easy to remember.
I think of Psalm 119 verse 9 where it says,
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
And so, you know, that's an easy way to remember it.
And it's basically like when you read the word of God, you're just cleaning yourself up.
The Holy Spirit is using that to clean you up.
And so that can be very helpful for you to remember.
Now, let me go through each acronym so that you understand what it is.
The first letter is S, which is scripture.
Okay.
So what you want to do is that when you read the Bible, you know, maybe you read one chapter, five chapters, ten chapters.
You want to pick a specific scripture that stands out to you.
Okay.
Something that you've learned something from.
You know, maybe it's something that you never really saw before or something that you just, you know, stood out to you.
And you pick that scripture and you write it out by hand.
Okay.
You put the book, chapter and verse and you write out that scripture by hand.
That's the first step.
Okay.
Which is S.
The second letter is observation.
So when you read the Bible, you want to make sure that you are learning the Bible.
Right.
You know, the problem with a lot of journals these days is that they put a large emphasis on inspiration rather than information.
No, we need information as well.
Inspiration is very much important.
You need to be encouraged.
You need the exhortation, but we also need the information as well.
We live in a biblically illiterate society where a lot of Christians don't know doctrine.
They don't understand the word of God.
And that's large in part due to the fact that, you know, when they read their Bibles, they're getting it for inspiration, but they're not necessarily getting the information.
Well, this second letter observation helps with that.
So basically what you're going to do is you're going to take the scripture that you wrote out and you're going to write out a synopsis of what is being spoken of.
What is it that's being taught?
What is it that's being explained in that portion of scripture?
Okay, read it in its context.
In other words, the next letter is application.
So after you've explained what that scripture is talking about, the main interpretation of that scripture, now it's time to apply it to our personal lives.
You know, we want to make sure that we're not just reading the Bible for information.
We also want inspiration.
You know, we want to apply this to our personal lives.
We want to make sure that we're doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving our own selves.
So write out a practical way that you're going to apply it to your life, whether that day or that week.
Okay, now there's going to be times when you read the Bible and you learn information, but it's not necessarily something that you can apply in a practical sense, you know, in your daily life.
Because there's times when God is trying to teach us information and it's not necessarily applicable.
At which point you can simply write down what you're going to change in regards to your way of thinking, you know, the way you're going to renew your mind in that regard.
And so you have scripture, the verse that stood out to you in your Bible reading.
You have observation, which is the primary interpretation of that scripture.
Then you have application.
How is it that you're going to apply that to your personal life?
And then lastly, you have P, which is prayer, simply writing out a little prayer, asking God to help you in that area and, you know, thanking God for his word or whatever it may be.
And so this is very helpful.
You say, how much should I write though?
You know, how many sentences per line should I write?
Well, obviously the scripture, the verse can be, you know, however many verses the verse is, right?
However many lines that is.
The observation should be no more than two to three lines.
Maybe the most even four.
And really it's up to you.
I try to make sure that I keep it as concise as possible where I know that it'll fill up about a quarter of the page and same thing with application.
OK, now let me just give you an example of my personal Bible reading.
This is something that I read a couple of weeks ago.
I was reading I was in the book of Isaiah and verse one of Chapter 30 stood out to me.
I'll read it to you.
And here's the observation that I got.
And the application that I wrote there is.
And then I have a little prayer there to ask the Lord to help me in that area.
And so that's basically it.
It's very simple.
And I hope that helps.
You know, this is basically what it should somewhat look like.
You know, just four sections, four small sections of, you know, the scripture, the observation, the application and the prayer.
And I guarantee you it will enrich your Bible reading.
You will get a lot out of it, especially as a preacher.
You know, if you have trouble coming up with sermon ideas, this is definitely a good way to get a lot of them.
And to put a synopsis of what you read out of your Bible and then simply the sermon will be an expanded version of what you read.
And so I hope that helped.
Put a comment in the section below if you have a question.
And God bless and have a great one.