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DALLAS—Within the week after becoming a Christian, someone handed O.S. Hawkins a slip of paper with 1 Corinthians 10:13 written on it, then looked the 17-year old boy squarely in the face and said, “You better memorize this because you will need it!”
Quoting the verse, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it,” Hawkins said only God knows how many times across the years he had arrived at temptation’s corner and that verse, hidden in his heart and mind, kept him on the right path.
That was the starting point for Hawkins’ journey of Scripture memorization that has carried him through life every day since.
His trilogy of devotionals titled The Joshua Code, The Jesus Code and The James Code were penned with the strategic purpose of addressing the three common relationships every person has in life, encouraging memorization of key verses relating to each area.
In the first book, Hawkins offered 52 verses every believer should know to relate to the upward expression of a relationship with God. The second book in the series offers 52 Scripture questions every believer should answer in describing their inward relationship with Christ.
“Once we’ve been properly related to God and ourselves, then it’s the outward expression that gives credibility to our witness,” Hawkins said, describing the newest book that he designed to offer Scripture principles that put faith into action.
“If we’re really walking in the Spirit, we won’t be wearing out the seat of our pants. We will be wearing out the soles of our shoes,” he insisted. “Just like The Joshua Code, it’s not about getting people into the Word of God, it’s about getting the Word of God into us.”
His daughter, Holly Hawkins Shivers, took the same concept and applied it to helping parents teach their children the same verses her dad selected for The Joshua Code, offering I Can Learn the Bible: 52 Scriptures Every Kid Should Know.
Shivers wrote in her letter to parents, “We can educate our children with a biblical worldview, we can enroll them in church activities and teach them principles to the best of our abilities, and we can pray for them, discipline them, and love them well. But there is nothing like the Word of God being planted in their hearts, taking root and producing genuine spiritual growth.”
Hawkins agreed that the best time to start Scripture memorization is when children are young. “If they can repeat the dialogue of Bubble Guppies when they are preschoolers, they can learn the Bible,” he noted.
From that first verse he memorized to deal with temptation, Hawkins learned to write a new memory verse in his own handwriting on a note card he keeps in his pocket. Whether at his desk or at a stoplight in the car, he reviews the first phrase until it is memorized, then the second, and so on.
“It is helpful for me to quote the entire verse from memory up to a hundred times in order to ‘seal it’ in my heart and mind before going to another verse,” he added.
In meditating on the verse, he sometimes puts the inflection on a different word each time. “It’s amazing how much insight comes from this simple practice for the young and the seasoned believer alike.”
Whether it’s a teenager starting out his journey of faith, a parent training a child to memorize a brief passage, or a man who has walked with Christ throughout his adult life, Hawkins stands by the promise of Joshua 1:8 that good success comes through recovering Scripture memorization and medication.
All of the royalties and proceeds from the three devotionals by O.S. Hawkins go to support Mission:Dignity, a ministry of GuideStone Financial Resources, helping supplement the income of thousands of retired ministers and their widows who are living near the poverty level. After 25 years of pastoring, Hawkins now serves as president of GuideStone which serves 250,000 pastors, church staff members, missionaries, and other workers in Christian organizations with retirement and benefit needs.
