HIDING GOD’S WORD IN YOUR HEART
Greetings church family!
“Gather the riches of God’s promises. Nobody can take away from you those texts from the Bible which you have learned by heart.”
Corrie Ten Boom
About nine years ago, during my early years in pastoral ministry, I had a wonderful conversation with a friend of mine who was aspiring to be a minister. In the middle of our conversation, he shared with me that he had the book of Galatians memorized. I couldn’t believe it, a whole book of the Bible memorized.
I invited him to come to my church and present his dramatic recitation of Galatians. It was a beautiful presentation! The congregation was so blessed by what my friend shared!
I, myself, was so inspired by the presentation as well, that I made up my mind to embrace the same experience my friend had. So, for the 6 months following that presentation, I determined to commit the book of Ephesians by memory. This last Sabbath, I had the privilege to share a recitation of Ephesians with you all.
However, what I really want to share with you is encouragement to embrace the practice of Scripture memorization in your own walk with Christ. I’d like to share 3 benefits (though I know there are more).
One, memorizing Scripture deepens your understanding of God and His Word in a way that only reading Scripture does not. I should add here that accompanying Scripture memorization with being filled and led by the Spirit is equally important. Remember, the Pharisees and scribes had the entire Old Testament memorized, and they missed Jesus’ birth anyway. Furthermore, they failed to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and discounted his ministry. Jesus said to them, “You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me. But you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.” [John 5:39 CSB] Under the leading of the Holy Spirit, memorizing Scripture points your heart and mind to the presence and power of the Savior, bringing a clarity and insight that is harder to access from just reading.
Two, memorizing Scripture is a powerful way to discern and disarm the lies of the devil. Jesus illustrated this when the Spirit led him to the wilderness for 40 days at the start of his ministry. When the devil came to tempt and deceive Jesus, the only words Jesus utilized to defeat the devil were words from Scripture. Satan’s lies are no match for the truth found in God’s Word.
And finally, memorizing Scripture equips you to share divine words of hope and encouragement to those you come in contact with looking for light in a dark world. Proverbs 25:11 says, “A word spoken at the right time is like golden apples on a silver tray.”
So, if you’ve made up your mind to embrace memorizing Scripture, where do you start?
You can start with memorizing single verses. The website https://holysojourners.com/150-bible-verses-all-christians-should-memorize/ is a good place to start to find meaningful verses to memorize.
I would encourage you to memorize a few verses before and a few verses after a chosen verse to truly get the context intended.
You may also choose to memorize whole chapters instead. This is a great choice! Some chapters to consider are Psalm 23, Isaiah 53, Psalm 51, 1 Corinthians 13, and Romans 8.
If you decide to tackle whole Bible books, Ephesians, Philippians, or 1 John are great places to start.
May God richly bless you in your Scripture memorization journey!
And don’t forget, God is for you, God is with you, and God loves you!
Pastor Chris
