Living in Christ: The Power of Scripture Memorization

if I were going to memorize only one verse out of the Bible in 2025 or recommend to somebody one verse it would be Colossians 3:17 whatever you do in word or deed do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ giving thanks to God the Father through him I love this verse because it is so comprehensive about all of life whatever you do now what does that leave out doesn't leave out much but then in case somebody's not quite clear on that whatever you do in word or deed most of life is going to involve words or deeds. [00:00:08]

Paul has really thought this through do it in the name of Jesus what does it mean to do something in the name of Jesus well name was a way of talking about somebody's character somebody's uh essential orientation toward life so God could you help me do what I'm doing right now in the name of Jesus the way that Jesus would do it with that kind of thought and that kind of heart and that kind of flare and that kind of love. [00:00:43]

Memorizing because I know I know I know I know as soon as it gets talked about if you didn't grow up in the church it probably sounds just odd why would you memorize something and if you did grow up in the church often it became this legalistic um mechanical kind of boring people who are good at memorizing stuff would do it the show off and then they would think that they were uh really spiritual even though they drove everybody else crazy by trying to show off how many Bible verses they memorized. [00:02:48]

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi he was the researcher brilliant uh scholar behind the study of what he called flow human beings who are caught up in life activity engaged in things that produce this joyous sense of self Transcendence and um not being self-conscious being fully engaged in what it is that I'm doing and that has to do with our minds and he actually has a wonderful section on the importance of memorization to a flourishing life in his initial best-selling book on Flow. [00:03:37]

Contrary to what we assume the normal state of the mind is chaos now that's your mind without training if you're following Jesus we call that discipleship I know Nancy don't like the word training take it up with chick semih high without an object in the external world that demands attention people are unable to focus their thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time when left alone with no demands on attention the basic disorder of the Mind reveals itself. [00:04:24]

People have always understood that a much better way to engage the mind a much better way to develop it and train it um is to cultivate memory to be able to remember good things we get our word demonic devices from new summoning I think it's is the way her name was pronounced she was the mother of the nine Muses in Greek mythology she was the mother of all culture that's memory that's the importance of memory and ancient people to this day in preliterate societies. [00:05:37]

The ability to order my thinking and to remember where I stand in this stream of ancestors that I'm somebody that somebody went before me and somebody's coming after me is highly prized people who have cultivated the ability to remember things particularly things that are worth remembering Democritus said it is a Godlike thing to think about beautiful things and so now uh to do that above all with scripture to be able to think about as Paul says whatever things are true whatever is Noble whatever is right whatever is excellent whatever is pure whatever is lovely if anything is admirable or praiseworthy think about such things. [00:06:32]

Dallas Willer talked about the task of the process of memorizing involving primarily three facets uh one of them is concentration so I take a statement like whatever you do in word or deed and I bring my mind fully to bear on it because it's so easy for us to Outsource Consciousness our concentration muscles are probably weaker than ever before in the history of the human race it is a kind of muscle to be able to focus attention and you can get better at it over time. [00:07:28]

Understanding and so in the task of memorizing something particularly a powerful thought there's probably going to be some density to it that will require unpacking set your mind on things above Paul says now what are things above clearly he's not talking about the clouds that are up there so I have to think about what does Paul mean by above and I may be able to understand that perfectly or um it may take a little while I might want to try to do a little research around it that's a real good thing that will stretch my mind in really good ways. [00:08:14]

Repetition and I do it again I seek to recite it again I seek to recite it again there's been very interesting research in our day about comprehension and absorption of material folks who do this in the academic world is very interesting it turns out that if you read something and you got a test coming up to just highlight and reread and reread and reread and reread what you have highlighted does very little good when it comes to actually absorbing and being able to recall. [00:08:58]

Try doing that just try it don't feel guilty if you don't do it you have much worse things to feel guilty about so don't waste your guilt on that make it kind of the game and you might feel like you fail you might feel like I really tried to memorize this particular passage or another one but I failed well guess what real good things will happen to you in the failure good things will happen to your mind when you're working on this that will not happen to your mind if you just default into whatever on this that's the invitation today. [00:10:27]

The journey of memorization is transformative, even if we feel we fail. The effort itself brings growth, inviting us to engage deeply with God's word and allowing it to shape our character and actions. This practice can lead to a flourishing spiritual life, where we are more attuned to God's presence and guidance. [00:10:37]