Many of the last sayings of Jesus on the cross come straight from Scripture, which leads James Montgomery Boice to write:

This means that Jesus was filling his mind and strengthening his spirit not by trying to keep a stiff upper lip or look for a silver lining, as we might say, but by an act of deliberately remembering and consciously clinging to the great prophecies and promises of God.  If Jesus did that, don’t you think you should do it too?  And not only when you come to die.

You need to fill your head with Scripture and think of your life in terms of the promises of Scripture now.  If you do not do it now, how will you ever find strength to do it when you come to die?  You must live by Scripture, committing your spirit into the hands of God day by day if you are to yield your spirit into God’s loving hands trustingly at the last.

For further thoughts on filling your head with Scripture, I encourage you to look at this article about memorizing Scripture.  John Wilson interacts with Joshua Choonmin Kang’s book, Scripture By Heart.  It is a book on my reading list, and Wilson shares one challenge from the book – spend 15 minutes a day memorizing Scripture.  How might our thoughts and indeed our entire lives change if we did this?  Perhaps we could live and die like Jesus….