Treasure. What are you treasuring, and what does it even mean to treasure something?
Merriam-Webster would define the verb treasure as:
“to hold or keep as precious” or “to collect and store up (something of value) for future use.”
Like Jesus says in Matthew 6, we want to store up our treasures in heaven. One of the most meaningful parts of Project for me this summer has been learning what that means and how treasuring the Bible – the Living Word of God – is a great way to store up treasures in heaven.
We are three full weeks in, and the lack of sleep and intense schedule is beginning to catch up with us all. Even still, it is amazing to see just how committed everyone on Project is when it comes to getting in the Word every morning. And the most beautiful part – students are excited to get up and read together. Reading the Bible every morning is not required, and yet it is something everyone is committed to doing. This is because we are all learning to treasure the Bible.
Zach Simmons, Campus Director of the University of Minnesota, has been leading our weekly Word Trainings. Each week he tells multiple personal and emotional stories on the value of the Bible and how treasuring the Bible has impacted him and his family’s lives, leading us to understand why the Bible truly is a treasure.
This summer our Bible reading has been structured around the “Inductive Study Method”: Observing, Interpreting, and Applying. The inductive method has been a great way to learn how to read the Word and look at what is there before simply making our own assumptions about what is in the text. The goal is to create healthy Bible reading habits that we can carry with us for the rest of our lives. We have all greatly enjoyed learning a highly structured method, knowing that with time, more freedom will naturally come while studying.
Last week, our Word Training centered around memorizing scripture. If the Bible truly is our treasure, we should long to fill our minds with it! Memorizing and meditating on scripture is a great way to treasure the Word of God and take it with us to guide and encourage us wherever we go. The simple way that Zach taught us to memorize was to say it out-loud ten times, write it ten times, then say it out-loud another ten times without looking at it. At the training, we all memorized Galatians 2:20.
After this week, I, along with many others, was convicted of not using my mind, which has the incredible ability to memorize, nearly enough. We want to steward the beautiful and complex brains that God has given us well by filling it with the truth of the Bible.
Other Treasures from this Week
Thursday Night Social
This week’s social was the Synchronized Swimming Social! For this social, each guys’ room comes up with a 2-3 minute “synchronized swimming routine” to perform for one of the girls’ rooms. Then the night of the social, each room performs their routine in hopes that the girls will accept their performance and take them on a group date. If the girls are not satisfied with the guys’ performance, they may pass on the room and pick up a different room instead. The rejected male room then gets to wait in the kiddie pool for another girl room to choose them over their initial room pairing.
The night is full of laughs as guys perform well-thought-out routines in order to win over the girls who are meant to be treasured! Each girl room then gets to plan out a group date that they take the guys’ room on. Group dates are just a fancy name for a group-hang-out. Godly community is another great way to store up our treasures in heaven. On STP, we want to treasure healthy, Godly relationships between men and women, and group dates are a fun and structured way to foster this! All the groups had a great time going on creative dates!
Co-Worker Cookout
We had our first co-worker cookout on Sunday, and it was a success! Most students invited and had co-workers over to our hotel to share a meal, see Project, and just hang-out and meet other students. All the students came together to put on a multitude of different activities for the enjoyment of our co-workers. The cookout was a great way to show Christian hospitality to our co-workers and deepen relationships with the possibility of sharing the gospel with them!
We want to treasure our relationships with our co-workers. We want to be intentional with them during our time together this summer and share with them the treasures that we have laid up in heaven, hoping they too will be convinced that Christ is the greatest treasure!
