Psalm 119:11 states, "I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you."
What a remarkable truth! If we store the Word of God in our hearts, we can carry it with us wherever we go and it will help us in our pursuit of holiness and guide us away from sin and to the Savior. There are a few things that most everyone carries with them whenever they walk out the door: their keys, their cell phone, and their wallet/purse. If I ever leave the house without one of these things I feel like I am missing something. How much more important is the Word of God and yet we often go about our daily lives without meditating on its truth because we can't carry it with us wherever we go. You may be thinking, "So just carry a handheld Bible with you and you won't need to memorize Scripture". Well, when the arrows of Hell begin flying your way and you have the Word of God stored in your heart, the Spirit of God gives you both protection and ammunition for the fight. If, however, the Word of God is not in your heart, nothing will come to your mind when the battle grows hot and flipping frantically through the Bible takes too much time in the heat of the moment.
I must confess: I have always had a really hard time memorizing Scripture. Even when I really set my mind to memorize Scripture and had Romans 1-8 memorized by heart, pretty much now I can only quote the eighth chapter to you. Why? It faded from memory. All that hard work out the window! But a few years back my wife and I were in a seminary class on personal evangelism and had to memorize 40 verses. Of all the 40 verses I memorized only about 2 are still there in my heart. Which ones stuck and why? The two that stuck were the two for which I made a song. Here they are:
"All that the Father gives me
will come to me
And whoever comes to me
I will never cast out"
-John 6:37
and
"Whoever has the Son has life;
whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God
that you may know
that you have eternal life"
-1 John 5:12-13
A few months ago I caught on to this and decided to memorize some more Scripture because I had gone a LONG time without any Scripture memory really sticking with me. I got a bunch of different verses in Isaiah and started trying to make a song for each. In all honesty, I do not have to go back to these verses ever with my Bible to make sure I haven't forgotten something. Why? Because the song is embedded in my memory and I couldn't forget it if I wanted to. Now I have a new goal: memorize one verse from every book of the Bible this year that points to Christ (since He is the focal point of all Scripture). So far I've got a song for Genesis thru Judges and sing them each day just because they're catchy. And now my 2 year old daughter who can barely string a couple sentences together sings them with me. She doesn't know it, but she is quoting Scripture! My wife thinks I'm a complete nerd with these tunes, but she admits that it has helped her memorize Scripture too. When she thinks my tunes are lame, she just makes her own version and goes with it. So how do you do it? Simple. Get some index cards and write down some verses you want to memorize. Then focus on one this week and read it over and over until you notice any words/phrases that may rhyme together if stated in a certain way. Once you do this, you'll come up with a little tune out of necessity and it will stick. The hard part is the verse references, but you can try saying those before you quote the verse in song and it should stick too. Here are some examples of my songs. I'm not using my Bible here…these are stuck in my brain and so can well up in my heart when I need them. These verses have often struck me when my flesh wants to get its way and led me to prayer. These verses have allowed me to meditate deeply on the Word of God while in line somewhere. These verses have greatly enhanced my preaching as I don't need to flip open my Bible and they have helped in evangelism greatly. I encourage you to follow my tip and start making some Scripture songs for your soul and those you will encounter.
Genesis three fifteen
"I will put enmity between
you and the woman and between
your offspring and her offspring
He shall bruise your head
and you shall bruise his heel"
Exodus 12:5-7 and 12-13
"Your lamb shall be without blemish;
a male a year old.
You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
And you shall keep it
until the fourteenth day of this month
when the whole assembly of the congregation
of Israel
shall kill
their lambs at twilight.
Then they shall take some of the blood
and put it on the two doorposts
and the lintel of
the houses in which they eat it
for I will pass through
the land of Egypt that night
and I will strike
the firstborn in the land of Egypt;
both man and beast,
and on all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgments
I am the Lord.
The blood shall be a sign for you
on the houses where you are
and when I see the blood I will pass over you
and no plague will befall you
to destroy you
when I strike the land of Egypt."
These Scripture passages are from the ESV.
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