I asked a group of Bible memorizers, “Why do you keep memorizing? With the effort and time it takes to memorize consistently, there must be significant reasons why you continue, why this practice has not gotten squeezed out of your busy life.”
Here are their answers, summarized and condensed into ten.
• Greater insight into God gives me greater joy in knowing him.
• He speaks to me through his Word.
• It changes my rebellious heart.
• I want to know and love God more. I can’t get there on my own.
• It is the deepest kind of encouragement.
• With my ADD it gives me something to focus on.
• I love spending this time with God. Saying his Word out loud, back to him, is worship.
• There are storms ahead and I want to be ready.
• It gives me a well to draw from—for myself and others.
• There’s something transforming when I hear God’s Word flowing out of my own mouth.
• It instills and strengthens hope.
• It gives me his unchanging standard in this fluctuating world.
• I want to be shaped by godly wisdom.
• I want God’s thoughts to be my thoughts. I need right thinking in order to have right behavior.
• I need better words than my own to help this hurting world.
Did you notice I gave you 15 reasons, not 10? I couldn’t decide which to cut.
I was surprised, but I should not have been, that many of their answers were Scriptures:
• “The word of God is living and active …
• “All Scripture is … useful for teaching, rebuking … training in righteousness
• “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word…
• ………….
I realized as I was writing them down, that the reason they quoted scriptures is because the truth of those verses is now so REAL to them, that it has become their own reason to keep memorizing. So I guess that is a reason in itself—we keep memorizing so that God’s truth will become our truth.
They also shared comments like: “There’s so much joy in it, I can’t imagine ever quitting.” “I never want to go back to where I was before.” “I can never get enough.”
These reasons echo my own, and I know they will encourage you.
