Memorize Bible Verses, Gain Biblical Knowledge, Grow Closer To God

Wanting To Know God's Word

I have been a Christian for many years and I have always wanted to learn more Bible verses by heart. However, my long list of excuses kept this from becoming a reality. I managed to learn a couple of verses early on and that is were my scripture learning days were put on hold.

I had plenty of time to watch TV, go out for the evening or even read a book but I never had any time to know God's Word. What is wrong with this logic? The only thing keeping me from studying Bible verses was my never ending list of excuses. Then one day, everything changed and now I am learning many Bible verses quickly and easily. I established my list of memorization methods. None of these methods are new, it is figuring out what works best for your learning style.

Memorizing scripture can be fun and easy while increasing your Biblical knowledge. How you go about memorizing Bible verses makes all the difference between failure and success. Possessing an excellent memory right from the starting gate is not a requirement. Your memory, your brain will improve the more you exercise it, use it. If you are willing to repeat yourself, read out loud and have fun during the memorization process then read on.

Anyone can memorize scripture. Yes, that is right, I said anyone. No more failed attempts. No more blaming your bad memory. No more excuses. Excuses, to me, stunts one's growth. I was stunting my Christian growth for years.

Living as a Christian, I felt like a failure because I could not rattle off scripture like other people. I was at many Christian game nights where we played Bible Trivia. Guess what? While others were blurting out Bible verses, I was just sitting there twiddling my fingers. I wanted to crawl under my seat.

I kept telling myself, “One day I am going to start memorizing scripture, yes one day.” Well, “one day” turned into weeks, months, years of memorizing nothing. I was so ashamed of myself. How am I supposed to fight against the enemy without God's Word buried deep in heart, my mind and my soul. I never use to think of or even care about this stuff but now I do.

When I started this journey, my only goal was to learn some scriptures but I learned so much more. In order to learn verses, you have to read it, memorize it and speak it. So guess what you're also doing? Studying God's Word. If you repeat something enough times, it will stay in your brain. If you dramatize the verses thereby focusing on each individual word, now you've added a word study. You might even pull out your concordance dictionary to look up some words at this point. See how just having the desire to learn scripture also increases your Biblical knowledge.

I did not think about how this would change me. I just wanted to know God's Word. Now, whenever I read the Bible, even more knowledge and wisdom jumps off the pages at me that I never noticed before. I enjoy reading the Bible more and really look forward to what God is going to teach me.

For me, it really does feel great quoting scripture from memory. The Bible says His Word is alive and active. I feel energized whenever I quote one. Some days, I need to quote many of them so I do. It is like carrying around a mini Bible in your brain.

Here is a small list of my excuses:

• I do not have a great memory.

• It is too hard.

• I am too old.

• I do not have time.

• I too busy.

• Someday I get around to it.

• I have a busy schedule.

• I want to watch TV.

• Memorizing Bible verses is not that important.

Hold on. Wait a minute. Rewind.

I am a Christian who does not have time to memorize God's Word? The Creator of our universe. The One who loves us to much that he sent His Son to save us from our sins. Ouch, that hurt.

That was the day I said, “No more excuses.”

This was my starting point to memorizing scripture.

Choose the best Bible version that suits your memory capabilities. Nobody thinks about this one. Some Bible versions are harder to memorize. Some versions make the verses much longer by over-explaining them. These Bibles are great for Bible study but may not be great for memorizing.

I personally would never use the King James Version with it's thees and thous. I would give up memorizing scripture instantly. The NIV suits my memory style. I love using the Amplified Bible Version for studying however, it makes the scriptures too long by adding so many descriptive words so I would probably not use it most of the time.

Since I did not know but a couple of Bible verses, I headed for the Internet. I performed a Google search for the “Top Scriptures To Memorize.” This was a starting point for me. I was familiar with some of the most popular verses but I had no idea where they were located in the Bible. The search also brought up the top 20, 25, etc.

Do not ask me why, but I suddenly decided to learn 100 Bible verses over a year's time frame. I chose the Top 100 list to read through. I read them all and chose the ones that touched my heart and affected me in some way. I performed other searches until I had my favorite 100 Bible verses. I wanted to learn the most familiar and popular first and also the shortest. I found early on that these were easier to learn. As I was learning more scripture and my memory was greatly improving, I made a mini goal of memorizing 10 Bible verses a week after I had already learned 20.

I told myself I could not memorize that much scripture too. Now, I know 100 scriptures. Never say never. No, there is nothing special about me. I just pushed the desire button one day and that same button activated my ability to learn quickly.

Please do not think you have to learn 100 Bible verses. This was a goal I made for myself. You choose however many you want to learn.

If you have not memorized anything for a while, it is best to start out learning the easiest Bible verses first, the shortest ones. This was my thought process when I got started. I wanted to make learning my initial 10 Bible verses a snap. In doing this, I memorized my first 10 scriptures within a week. This helped me feel a sense of accomplishment in a short amount of time. This is key to getting started. You are just starting to exercise your memory banks. Your brain needs time to warm up so keep is simple and keep it short. If you are ready to handle longer scripture, by all means, go for it.

You are the one memorizing scripture. Choose the one's that mean something personal to you. Make the memorization process fun and easy for yourself.

The key to memorizing scripture or anything is repetition, repetition, repetition. For some reason, memorizing Bible verses is harder to learn for most people. So this is what I did. I repeated over and over one scripture 50 to 100 times maybe even more, depending on the length and complexity. Trust me, before you are halfway through, you will have that verse in your head.

You do not have to count or remember how many times you are repeating the verse. That just takes up memory space. Be patient and keep reading the verse over and over. When I felt comfortable, as I was reading the Bible verse, I would start shifting my eyes upward to see how much of the verse I could remember. I was amazed at the results.

This was extremely helpful for me. Saying the Bible verse out loud helps immensely in the memorization process. If you can, stand up or even walk around while speaking out loud, even better. If you have to or prefer to sit, sit up tall, no slumping and back pushed against the chair.

Just saying a verse over and over again can be quite monotonous and boring. I use dramatization while repeating a new verse. Pretend you are on the stage speaking to an audience. Maybe talking to a child. Be the storyteller. Sing it, rap it or whatever goofiness will leave an imprint on your brain, tap your hands and/or feet. Whatever you do, be creative and have fun.

Remember listening to someone tell you a story with excitement in their voice. At times, they are speaking fast or normal speed and then they would slow way down putting emphasis on each individual word to make sure you were listening for the best part, well that is what I started doing to make the memorizing process more fun.

When I first tried this technique, I was just kidding around. However, I soon realized it greatly improved my memorization ability. I was excited to find I was remembering the verses even quicker.

Your desire to want to know God's Word by heart is a big factor for successfully accomplishing this task. You have to start this journey with the right frame of mind otherwise success could take much longer than expected.

Remember having to memorize something for school that you had no desire to memorize. Without the desire to learn, I bet it took you forever to learn it. I know it did for me.

Unless you truly desire to learn God's Word, it probably, in most cases, will greatly hinder the learning process or you will just end up quitting. A while back, I tried to learn scripture out of my duty as a Christian. It did not work because my heart was not into it. I lacked desire.

Years later, when my desire was activated, I fairly quickly had 100 verses memorized. It was my desire to learn this many and it is my desire to keep learning more. Yes, you can do it too. Memorizing 100 Bible verses may not be your desire. Whatever number you desire to learn, be happy with your results.

Writing anything down re-enforces it into your memory. Try writing or typing the Bible verse as many times as possible. I say it out loud while typing it. This greatly improved my memory retention.

Yes, almost everything has an app. Search the app store on your cell phone. Some are free and others are not. The paid ones are very inexpensive, usually less than a couple of dollars. I put one on my iPhone. It works great.

Write/type the verse book and number on one side and write/type the verse on the other side. Make the number of flashcards that suits your learning ability. Frequently read through them. Keep them in your pocket or where you can easily grab them and read them whenever you have some free minutes.

If you enjoy music, try listening to instrumental music while memorizing Bible verses. It clears the mind and soul. Only use music if it will not distract what you are trying to accomplish, memorizing.

My initial goal was to memorize 20 Bible verses within 2-3 months. I had 30 memorized in two weeks. My new goal was to memorize 100 scriptures within a year. I accomplished that in one month.

Please do not get discouraged by how many I have memorized or try to keep up. Memorizing scripture should be done at your pace. If you can, set a time and place to go over and over one verse.

Once my memory had been exercised, I chose 10 more to memorize. At this point, I notice my brain had gotten sharper and quicker at remembering.

Memorizing scripture has become a word study for me. I am more aware of what the scripture is saying. Instead of just reading it from the Bible, I am repeatedly reading the passage, therefore, I am getting a deeper understanding of the verses.

Since I started memorizing Bible verses, I noticed I have been getting closer to God. Knowing and keeping God's Word in my heart has been transforming my Christianity for the better. I understand that there is more to being a Christian than just learning scripture, however it been an outstanding start in getting close again to my Lord and Savior.

Here is an example of being familiar with a Bible verse, or in this case, verses. After I had memorized 10 verses, I thought my brain was warmed up, I really want to memorize Psalm 23 so I gave it a try. I also timed myself for testing purposes. Amazingly, I memorized these verses in 15 minutes. I could not believe it.

My theory is other than my brain being warmed up, Psalm 23 was very familiar to me and I had a great desire to memorize it.

Everything is on the Internet, just perform a search. There are many free online scripture memorization programs. Some you use online and others you download. There are always plenty of free scripture learning programs on the Internet.

In the beginning, do not try to overload your brain with lengthy, complex scripture with names you cannot pronounce. You do not want to quit when you are just getting started. However, if you already have a fairly good to great memory then choose whatever scripture you heart desires. I am just expressing what worked for me. I know everyone is different in their learning abilities.

Do not compare yourself to others. Most importantly, do not compare yourself to anyone who preaches the Word. They spent years knowing all those scriptures. Trust me, with the right desire, in a few years, you could know just as many Bible verses as them so please do not tell yourself you cannot because you can.

Never lay down anywhere or get too comfortable. Every time I got too relaxed while trying to memorize a Bible verse, I either became sluggish and lazy or I fell asleep.

Please do not become arrogant and prideful because you have memorized some Bible verses. I have met these people and nobody wants to be around them. It is God's desire for you to win people to Christ not drive them away.

1. Choose the easiest and best Bible version.

2. Research and compile a list of Bible verses.

3. Memorize the shortest verses first.

4. Repetition, repetition, repetition. (50-100 times)

5. Read out loud, if possible, while standing or walking.

6. You need desire to memorize successfully.

7. Use dramatization. Make it fun.

8. Write or type it many times.

9. Make 3x5 flashcards.

10. Free online/download software

11. Cell phone apps

12. Instrumental music.

13. Word study.

14. Set goals.

15. Do not learn long, complex verses in the beginning.

16. Do not compare yourself to others.

17. Do not get too comfortable.

18. Do not become arrogant and prideful.

19. REMEMBER – YOU CAN AND WILL MEMORIZE BIBLE VERSES.

Bible verse memorization is a fun part of my life now and it can be for you too. I am more confident of who I am in Christ. I feel closer to my Lord and Savior. I have a greater understanding of what He wants from me. I feel more confident in Christ because I am finally learning His Word and His Word is constantly leaving my lips. I am more confident to speak up during conversations regarding the Bible. Knowing the Bible will open your heart, mind and soul to God's world and His will for your life.

I would love to hear how you are progressing in memorizing Bible verses. Send me a post. I would love to hear what methods are working for you.