Growing Your Relationship with God Through Reading the Bible: Pt. 3 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning. We’re talking all this week about growing closer to God through His Word, the Bible. Well, if you want to get close to God, spend time with Him and listen to what He’s saying to you. And the most clear way you can know what God is saying to you is by opening your Bible.

And really you need to make the Bible central in your life, and we’re looking each day at a different lesson of how to make the Bible central in your life.

Yesterday we saw you need to spend time with God in His Word each day. And today, here’s the lesson:

Renew your mind by memorising verses that speak into your life.

Renew your mind by memorising verses that speak into your life. You remember on Monday I read with you from Psalm 119 and these beautiful words about what the Word of God means in the psalmist’s life. Let me read you just a couple of those verses again.

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments.

And then here’s the key verse –

I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

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Well, you can store up your Bible on the shelf. But you can store God’s Word in your heart through scripture memory. And memorising verses has had such a massive impact on my own Christian life. I remember as a young Christian being a part of a Bible study where we started memorising passages of Scripture.

We’d memorise a paragraph together, and each week we’d just add two verses to what we had already memorised until we finished the whole paragraph, and paragraph after paragraph, I’ve memorised so much of the Bible down through the years since that group. Almost every group I’ve been a part of, I’ve encouraged to join me in memorising scripture. What a difference it will make in your life too.

How it will make the Bible central in your life. The apostle Paul said that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, and few things will renew your mind as much as memorising Scripture. So here’s 4 pointers for you in memorising Scripture.

Number 1, find someone to memorise with you and agree with them on a Bible version that you’ll both use.

OK. You don’t want to both be memorising different versions and then trying to notice what the other person’s saying. It’s much better if you’re memorising from the same Bible version, and find someone to memorise with you. It doesn’t mean that you’re both sitting there memorising at the same time, but during the week you’re both memorising the same verses and then sharing them with each other.

Actually that relationship can turn into an accountability relationship that goes way beyond scripture memory and blesses you deeply.

Secondly, memorise short passages, adding two verses each week.

So it can be great to memorise individual verses that really speak to you, and I encourage you to do that.

But to memorise a passage often adds a lot of meaning, and as you go over the verses you’ve already memorised each week, as you’re adding two more, those verses go deeper and deeper and deeper, and I can remember so vividly passages I memorised decades ago, because I had to say them so many times in memorising them, adding two verses each week.

Number 3 – look for chances to share your memorised passage with other people during the week.

Look for chances, just say, hey, here’s what I’m memorising. Can I practise it with you? And just share it, and then maybe have a conversation about it, and you’ll have a spiritual impact on the person you’re sharing with, and it’ll also go deeper into your own heart and mind.

Number 4 – find the way of memorising that works best for you.

People memorise in different ways. Some people need a visual stimulus; some people even do a cadence. Some people even make up a little song with the verses words in it. I like to.

Just memorise a phrase and then add the next phrase and say them both together and then add the next phrase and say all of them together, but that’s not how everybody works. Find out the way that works best for you, but whatever you do, put God’s Word in your heart through scripture memory.

I’m John North.