One of my New Year’s resolutions was to memorize a new passage of scripture each month. I have learned the power of scripture in so many areas of my life. I don’t think it is a coincidence that both Hebrews 4:12 and Ephesians 11:17 refer to the word of God as a sword. As a matter of fact, of all the armor mentioned in Ephesians 6:11-17, the sword of the Spirit is the only offensive weapon we have in our fight against the enemy. Surely, that is why Jesus wielded His sword with expert precision when He himself was battling the enemy!
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” (Matthew 4:1-10 NIV)
You see, Jesus’ response to all of the lies of Satan was not to argue with him. We don’t even see Jesus pleading with the Father to make Satan leave! His one and only response to Satan was “It is written…”. Furthermore, Jesus didn’t have the Dead Sea Scrolls in His back pocket! He didn’t pull them out to try and search for the correct scripture for His situation. He had the Word hidden in His heart and He quoted it OUT LOUD to His enemy!
Now don’t get me wrong. I believe in the power of prayer and I have, at many times, told “my Daddy” on Satan. I have also come to love Bible Gateway.com and have turned to it, and my Bible concordance to find scriptures many times. My point, is that it is important to have the Word hidden in our hearts as well.
I have memorized scripture for 15 years now. My first memory verse was Psalm 119:11, “I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You”. A guest speaker in my college Bible study group taught us a method for memorizing scriptures.
1. He said to start with the address and repeat it over and over…”Psalm 119:11″, “Psalm 119:11”, “Psalm 119:11″…you get the idea.
2. Then break the verse down into sections and repeat each section with the address bit by bit…”Psalm 119:11-I have hidden Your word in my heart”, “Psalm 119:11-I have hidden Your word in my heart”, “Psalm 119:11-I have hidden Your word in my heart”.
3. Once I have that memorized, I add the next section. “Psalm 119:11-I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You”, “Psalm 119:11-I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You”, “Psalm 119:11-I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You”.Get it?
4. Lastly, remember, this is not a race. This process can take a matter or minutes or a matter of days. The point is not to do it quickly. It’s just to do it!
So I started with verses and eventually moved on to full chapters. Some of my favorites I have memorized are Psalm 139 (my favorite scripture of all time because it shows me how much I am loved and known by my Father. I also love and have memorized Psalm 34, Psalm 51, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Philippians 4:4-8, Colossians 3:12-17 and many others.
I also have many verses memorized to help me in the battle with the enemy in areas of food. That seems to be the area Satan comes at me most often with so, like Jesus, I knew I had to be ready for battle. (And don’t even get me started with the fact that the first area Satan tempted Jesus with was food (see Matt 4:1-4 above…as a matter of fact, the first temptation of all time dealt with food too! Do we see a pattern here?)! Some of my favorite scriptures that help me in this fight are 1 Corinthians 10:13, Deuteronomy 8:3b, Romans 12:1, etc. For a list of more of these scriptures, see my blog titled “Scriptures on my Journey to 100” here.
Several of my new friends on Twitter and Facebook asked me to share which scriptures I have memorized in 2011 for my NY resolution.
January I choose 1 Peter 5:6-11 because verse 10 is the theme scripture behind my song “Stronger” from my latest album, What If We Were Real.
February was Psalm 130 because I knew verse 5 would be particularly useful on February 14 (AKA Single Awareness Day)! I also did Isaiah 54:5 that month for the same reason!
For March I chose Philippians 2:1-11 because I was experiencing success in several areas and felt the Lord pressing me to a deeper place of humility.
My album, What If We Were Real, was releasing in April so I chose to continue from March and memorized Philippians 2:12-16 so I’d know what it REALLY meant to be a “star” (v.15)!
“The Motherload” was happening in May. I would be spending 12 days with my mom and I wanted to honor her…and be kind to her, so Ephesians 6:1-3 came in handy!
I was giving into temptation and binge eating more than I wanted to, so June is when I began memorizing Romans 7:15-25 (MSG). It took until August but I finally did it!
And that brings us to September! I asked my friends on Twitter and Facebook for suggestions on a scripture that talks about a Christian’s victory of shame.I read each passage people recommended. I have many of them memorized already (like Psalm 34:5 and Romans 8:1-2). But when I read Psalm 30:11-12, I knew this was it. I feel like it is my life verse!
I have come to realize that shame is an area I dwell in too much. Guilt says “I did something bad”. Shame says “I AM something bad”. It is why my song “The Truth About Me” means so much to me. God has been teaching me to believe what HE says about me. Not what the enemy says about me. Not even what I say about myself! He truly has changed my life! That is why I can say,
You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
LORD my God, I will praise you forever. (Psalm 30:11-12 NIV)