Memorization - What's the point?

Memorization - What's the point?

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

9:04 AM

How important is it to memorize verses from the Bible?  I'm in the word pretty much daily anyway.  Is it really a big deal that I have never spent much time memorizing scripture?  That is something that I have been reevaluating in my life. 

As you may be able to tell, I have never been big on the memorization thing.  There are many times when discussing the Bible that I refer to the Common Christian paraphrase.  What I mean by that is that I can paraphrase what I think the Bible says about a subject and I know it's in there somewhere but I'm not exactly sure where.  (Isn't there a spaghetti sauce commercial that says that?)

The question is, is that good enough?  Well let's see what the Bible says.  I could beat you over the head with several verses that talk about this issue but I'll stick with just one that goes right to the point.

Deuteronomy 11:18(NKJV)

18“Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 

We are instructed to write God's words on our heart.  Not just to read them but to write them on our hearts.  What is the difference?  Well as I evaluate the issue I would say that memorization is much closer to writing God's words on my heart than just reading them. 

I remember years ago at our old church we had a missionary by the name of Dave Green come talk to us.  He had spent 30-40 years in the mission fields of Africa.  As he talked he told us to look up this verse and that verse.  He read them as we looked them up.  Well, he didn't actually read them.  As I watched him he was reciting them from memory.  He had then written on his heart.

So as I try to deepen my understanding of God I can see how memorization could help that understanding.  So I'm on board at that level.  But if we go to my theme of a couple of days ago, is there any practical day to day benefit to memorization.   

The answer is yes.  God has made many promises to us.  We can stand on those promises.  Here is the practical day to day difference.  We can stand on those promises in a general way because "we know they are in there somewhere" or we can memorize the actual promises and  have a much more confident footing on which to stand.

This was illustrated very nicely in todays JumpStart Daily Devo from Pastor Beth.  (http://community.icontact.com/p/jeffandbethjones/newsletters/jumpstart/posts/how-sweet-it-is)  Sometimes our prayers are not answered the way we would like or in the time frame we would like.  It's easy to get disappointed and discouraged by that.  But if you know God's specific promises regarding the things that we desire then you can focus on God's promises instead of your disappointments and discouragements.  So yes there are practical day to day reasons to memorize scripture.

So whatever you are dealing with in your lives, spend some time with God looking up His promises in that area of your life and then memorize those scriptures.  You just may find it helps give you that peace that surpasses all understanding!