As some continue to stay in distanced situations and as still others are afraid of coming out of their homes and back into the general population, we need to find creative ways to dig deeper into the Bible. So how do we amp up our depth of spiritual awareness? How do we grow as followers of Christ when we aren’t doing life together for the time being?

Over the past several weeks we’ve talked about digital discipleship. We looked at prayer walking and bible reading and journaling. Today we’re going to look at something I hated to do when I was growing up but find beneficial now that I’m hopefully a little wiser. It’s Bible memorization.

Now let me be totally clear nearly everyone can memorize. Most will say they can’t but that’s just because they don’t want to invest the effort into it. There may be some learning hurdles that prevent a few from carrying out the task of memorization but all in all just about everyone is capable.

Bible memorization is pretty simple. You just pick a verse or phrase from the bible and commit it to memory. I know sounds way too simple to be effective. But it’s super powerful. The reason bible memorization is so fundamental to our lives as followers of Jesus is that it gives us arrows to fire off at different situations we face. No! Not at people who disagree with us but situations where we struggle.

Bible memory isn’t aimed at shooting down people whose worldview is different from your worldview. We use the verses we memorize to attack our fears, insecurities, addictions and other hurdles in our day to day lives.

There are many platforms for helping with bible memory but the one I’ve found most helpful in my life is the Topical Memory System (TMS) by NavPress. It assigns a verse to every day and gives a system for how to go about learning and memorizing these verses.

Another great tool for bible memory is a partner. Again sounds almost too easy doesn’t it?! But it’s true. Having someone to hold you accountable is vastly important to the task of bible memory.

I’m not sure what your bible background is or how familiar you are with how the bible is put together and how it functions. So I don’t want to take anything for granted. If you’re not going to use a systematic approach like the TMS then I’d highly suggest going to the book of John in the New Testament (back 1/3 of the bible). As you go through the book of John, take a look at the words Jesus spoke. These are often printed in red ink. Find one of these phrases or sentences and commit it to memory.

There you have it. A simple and straightforward way to deepen your knowledge of who God is and how he operates by just opening your bible or bible app and committing one verse to memory every week. It will make a massive difference!