Why I Love Memorising Scripture

When I memorise verses I find that they spring into my head when I need them, and I don’t have to say, ‘Umm the Bible say something about that, what is it again? What was that word? Where’s my concordance…’ I have it right there in my mind and it can come right out of my mouth! And the great thing about that is that I can use it to help others, or help myself by fighting temptations, doubts and discouragement. Jesus used scripture to combat the devil’s temptations in the wilderness, and I am positive that knowing the scripture well makes your sword so much sharper to fight temptation!

Recently I started to memorise the whole book of Philippians, prompted into action by Katie Orr who has done a great job of encouraging people to memorise Philippians and other things too – her post on it is here:

What I love about memorising a whole book is that I know the context of the verses that people quote, I know where verses are when I need them, I am encouraged every time I recite them, and best of all, reciting long chunks of scripture is a great time-filler. When I am struggling to go to sleep because I have so many things on my mind, or my kids have just woken me up, I can start practicing Philippians and I usually fall asleep about 6 verses in! When I am doing laundry or dishes, or driving in the car somewhere I can again recite it which is great for keeping it in my head and great for occupying my mind in a good way. Colossians 3:2 says ‘Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth’ – so this is a wonderful way of doing this.

And then if you find yourself thinking about something you shouldn’t be thinking about, you can force your mind to start meditating on one of these verses in your mind, and thinking about what it means. I remember doing this a lot at one time in my life before I was married when I liked a guy that I knew I didn’t want to marry, so everytime I started thinking about him I made myself start thinking about scripture I had memorised instead. It took a while and was extremely hard, but it didn’t take too long before it wasn’t so much of a problem anymore!

My absolute favourite part of Philippians so far has been in chapter 2v5-11 where Paul starts that wonderful part about Christ: ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…’ going on to how he made himself of no reputation, and then finishing up with how God therefore highly exalted him ‘and has given Him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…’ I just love saying that whole passage out loud – and my heart burns within me everytime I do. It is so beautiful and majestic and I know Jesus went through so much, but one day every knee will bow when He comes back, and I can’t wait for that day!

If you find yourself memorising scriptures and then forgetting them again, you may find this post helpful on how to make sure you keep remembering them.

Have you been encouraged or helped by memorising anything? Or do you need help in figuring out what or how to memorise? I would love to hear from you!