Saturate Your Mind with Scripture

Dannah Gresh: Glenna Marshall says the more you dwell on Scripture, the less attached you will be to the things of this world.

Glenna Marshall: You will find that, as your love for the things of this earth are diluted, you will feel less at home here. You will find that your heart longs for eternity, because this isn’t your home. Your home is yet to come. Heaven with God is your home forever, and heaven is where your heart is.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for January 10, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh with our host Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of A 30-Day Walk with God in the Psalms.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Memorizing Scripture takes time and effort; there are no shortcuts. But oh, it is so worth it! Let me just say parenthetically, if I had children of my own today, one of the things that I would want to make a priority is helping and encouraging them to memorize Scripture while their young minds are so retentive and can memorize Scripture and other things so quickly. If you are a mom or a grandmom, as you help those little ones memorize Scripture, you'll be getting it into your own mind and heart as well.

Yesterday, Glenna Marshall began sharing about why memorizing God’s Word matters. Today, she’s back, not only to inspire you to learn God’s Word, but to equip us with ways to do that. Here's Glenna speaking at a recent True Woman conference.

Glenna: Jesus Himself, gives us a beautiful picture of how Scripture memorization can aid you in Matthew 4. This is the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. I love this story because Jesus has been fasting for forty days and forty nights. He was God, but He was also man. He would have been quite hungry by that point.

And so Satan comes along, and he is trying to poke Jesus where he thinks Jesus is weak. So he tempts Him to turn stones into bread because he knows Jesus is hungry. And he also tempts Jesus to throw Himself off a building. Basically what Satan is doing is tempting Jesus to satisfy His desires or needs immediately. He’s tempting Him to give Satan primary influence in His life rather than the Father. And he’s tempting Him to bypass the path to the cross.

And Jesus responded with the Word. Interestingly, so did Satan. But what Satan does is twist Scripture out of context. What Jesus does is rightly divide the Word. And that should be an encouragement to us when we are memorizing Scripture, to make sure that we are looking at overall context. Because we like to go through and pick out—if we’re going to memorize, which is a hard enough decision in the first place—we pick out our favorite verses. Right?

But sometimes we pick out verses, and we use them in a way that’s not really helpful. We miss the overall historical context. We claim, perhaps, a promise that was meant for a specific person at a specific point in redemptive history. We claim it as our own, and then we get mad at God when He doesn’t do what He never actually promised to do. It’s interesting. Context is really, really important.

There are many beautiful promises in Scripture that are ours to claim, that are for us. But it is important when we are memorizing that we both understand the background of where we’re trying to memorize—who’s speaking, who’s being spoken to, what kind of genre. Is it poetry? Is it a narrative? Is it a letter? It’s helpful to keep those things in mind.

And this is why—I know this is scary—but I’m going to encourage you to memorize long passages. Either a whole chapter, or—gird yourself—a book. And I’m telling you, you can do it. You may be thinking, I’m not a mind reader, but I know someone in here is thinking, But you don’t know me. I have a terrible memory. It’s really bad.

Last fall I stood in line at the pharmacy, and the pharmacist asked me for my phone number to verify my prescription. I blinked at her for ten seconds. I could not remember my phone number! (laughter) But I was memorizing Colossians. (laughter) So, I had a tiny panic attack in the line, and then my phone number came to me.

But, if you feel like, “Okay, I love the idea of memorizing Scripture, but I just don’t have a good memory,” I just want to tell you right now (I’m going to free you from that excuse): God designed your brain to remember things. He also designed your brain to forget things, which is actually a relief because if you remembered every sight, sound, number, annoying commercial jingle, you would lose it.

It is actually God’s grace that we have something called a “hippocampus,” which is what we call a working memory, a short-term memory. It is designed to hold onto information for, like, ten to fifteen seconds. If you create neural pathways to the brain, to move that information to your long-term memory, then it’s there. The more pathways you give and experience the easier it is to retrieve. And that is why mumbling aloud to yourself is a great way.

Do you ever need to type in a pass code, and it’s like 5416, 5416, 5416, 5416, 5416 (laughter), and you say it until you type it in there? And it’s like, “Ah!” (laughter) So what you’re doing is using your hippocampus to its maximum degree, and you are moving that information, and now you’re going to remember 5416 forever because you said it twenty-five times.

Rehearsing and reciting is one of your brain’s ways of remembering things and forming memories. I’m going to come back to that more practical, but I do just want to free you from the excuse that you can’t memorize, because you can. God has designed our brains in an amazing way, and I just want to tell you your memory is a beautiful thing.

I believe that the Lord is pleased to help you memorize because, if you are a believer, then the Holy Spirit lives in you. God’s Word does not return void. It is no empty Word. It is your very life. With the Lord’s help, and with some practical tools, I do believe that you can hide God’s Word effectively in your heart.

One last passage—I just got done studying this passage a couple weeks ago. I have a Bible study group that meets every week. We just got done with the book of Romans. We camped out in Romans 12 for a little while, and this passage just kept coming to me over and over again where Paul says to the Roman believers:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So then Paul goes on in that chapter to give a very practical list of commands, ways to interact in the Church:

• Let your love be genuine.
• Show hospitality.
• Have family affection for one another. 
• Do not seek vengeance.
• Be forgiving.

. . . this long list telling believers how to live. But before he says all that, he says, “Don’t be conformed to the world, but be transformed by renewing your mind.”

Renewing means “to influence or change the way that you think.” If you were dead in yours sins, and then Jesus saved you, you’re a new creation in Christ. So essentially your call here is, “Don’t be who you used to be. Be who you are now.”

My husband and I talk about this a lot. He’s a pastor. So when we talk about Paul’s letters, Paul always does this. He’s like, “This is who you used to be. This is who you are now.” Essentially what he’s saying is, “Be who you be.” And that’s how we sum up Paul’s letters. “Who you were. Who you are. Be who you be.”

This is who you are in Christ. You’re a new creation. So your mind does not need to be transformed into who you used to be. Your mind needs to be transformed into who you actually are now in Christ. So you have to take into consideration what you are putting into your mind.

The world is trying to renew your mind to something. You are being influenced by something. What is it? Is it a nightly Netflix binge? Is it a social media scroll? Is it an Instagram influencer? Is it TV? Is it news? Is it Facebook politics? (Please say “No.”) Is it a murder podcast?

What are you constantly feeding your mind? Because something is influencing you. You’re renewing your mind to something. And Jesus said in Matthew, that, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34). So what is in here will come out. What are you putting in?

So my call here, and I think what Paul is telling us to do, is be transformed by renewing your mind to God’s Word. You are not who you used to be. You belong to Him. He wants your mind. That’s what it boils down to. Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. 

 

Not because He is persnickety and wants you to be unhappy. But because He knows that your heart will be restless until it rests in Him. You will not be satisfied by whatever offering this world has, you will only be satisfied when you are wholly devoted to Him, heart, soul, mind, strength.

When you fix your mind on the Word of God, then what is in comes out. And it changes how you think. Mind renewal in some ways, I feel like, is mind rewiring.

• You begin to think like Jesus.
• You begin to speak like Jesus.
• You begin to respond to stress like Jesus.
• You respond to suffering like Jesus.
• You respond to temptation like Jesus.

Living closely to God’s Word renews your mind and changes the way that you think.

The Lord wants your mind. He wants the primary place of influence in your life. As God, He deserves it. And as His people, we need it. We need the Lord to be the primary voice speaking into our lives.

In the process of Scripture memorization, I think you will find, that as you mumble God’s Word aloud to yourself, as you grow in meditating on His Word, you will find your love for this world greatly diluted.

That’s been one of the more surprising effects of Scripture memorization that I have noticed. The things that used to make me laugh, embarrass me a little. The shows I used to watch make me cringe—and not because I’m getting older and I’m becoming a prude. It’s just that the things that used to entertain me embarrass me now.

When you fix your mind on God’s pure, holy Word, then you see sin for what it is. It’s not funny anymore.

You will find that, as your love for the things of this earth are diluted, you will feel less at home here. You will find that your heart longs for eternity because this isn’t your home. Your home is yet to come. Heaven with God is your home forever, and heaven is where your heart is.

The Lord is building a city for you. He is the Architect and the Builder, and He is making a home for you. Until then, we need to fix our hearts on His Word so that we will be carried and sustained until we see Him in our new home forever.

Saturating our minds with Scripture helps us to find our true allegiance to Christ, not to this world. And I’ve got to tell you, when you begin to feel out of step with this culture, be thankful, because that is a good, good thing. If you feel very settled and very at home, I want to encourage you to memorize Scripture because you need to be shaken up a little.

I did not realize that I needed to be unsettled on this earth, that I was too comfortable with my entertainment and my comfort and my luxury. Memorizing Scripture has taught my heart to long for my true home. The more I think on God’s Word, the less I love what this world calls good, and I love what God calls good. There is a big difference.

I could go on. There are so many more benefits to memorizing Scripture. It gives you the words you need to encourage people when they’re hurting. It helps you to share the gospel, to have the words in your heart to speak in a gospel conversation. It will help you bear up under suffering. (That’s a whole other session I could teach.)

But for the sake of time, I want to shift now to some hows in our last few minutes together because I know that’s what some of you are really here for.

Now, some of you might think, “I do not have time to add another spiritual discipline to my life. I’m doing good to read a little bit of Scripture each day.”

I am not going to tell you that you need to find more time in your day. Nancy did not have thirty hours of her day when she was memorizing Revelation. She still had twenty-four hours just like everyone else. I still only have twenty-four hours a day to memorize some books of the Bible.

What I do want to encourage you to do is to redeem the time that you already have. I want you to utilize what I like to call “mental down times.” These are times during your day when your brain does not have to be engaged.

I mean, I’m folding laundry—twice a week there’s a laundry mountain on my bed. And, you know, it does not require my brain to be present. Now, my husband would argue because he got a gray sock and a black sock matched up the other day. (laughter) I think he’d like my brain to be a little more engaged. (laughter)

But you don’t have to really give all your brain power to folding laundry or maybe commuting to work or taking a walk, washing dishes, these times in your day where maybe your hands are active, but your mind isn’t.

Now, our temptation then is to turn on a show or a podcast or an audio book or the TV, just one of those things to fill the gap of time with our brains. Utilize a mental down time for memorizing Scripture because that’s time you have. You don’t have to find a new time. It’s already your time. We’re just going to use it for something else.

And, what that also does, if you pair Scripture memorization with a task, you are creating more neural pathways in your brain to retrieve memories.

Now, I am not a brain scientist. That’s not even the term . . . neuroscientist? Neuro somebody. (laughter) Somebody smarter than me. So, I am not one of those people. However, I did a little research.

I just turned in a book on memorizing Scripture, and I did some brain research, some brain science (about the most I will nerd out about anything), and I was fascinated by the way that the brain can hold onto memories. Like, why you remember certain experiences better than others. The more senses that are involved in an experience, the more likely you are to remember those details.

So, if you are memorizing Scripture while doing something that you always do, you are more likely to have success in recalling those passages.

So, what does this like for me? I will give you an example:

I memorized the entire book of James in the shower—in the shower. And I’m going to tell you, this is my number one tip for Scripture memorization: Print off your text. Put it in a zip-lock bag upside down, with the seal on the bottom. (laughter) Tape that thing to the shower wall.

Now, here’s the thing: If you decide to memorize a whole book of the Bible, you do not have to wash that shower wall because it’s covered in Scripture. (laughter) It’s a win-win! (laughter) What could be better than not having to scrub the shower wall? (laughter)

All right. So, you’re going to memorize Scripture in the shower. Here’s what this looks like. I should say, to get started, choose a chapter or a book—don’t be scared. Choose a book you’ve recently studied. Like, if in the summer you studied 1 John, choose 1 John.

• Print out 1 John 1.
• Type it out, write it out.
• Put it in a zip-lock bag.
• Tape it to the shower.

You’re familiar with the flow of the book because you’ve studied it recently.

Or a psalm that you’re familiar with.

Put it in the shower. And every time you get in the shower, you’re going to read the first phrase aloud ten times. Let the commas and the punctuation—the semicolons, periods—let those be a guide for phrases. Okay? So, pick a phrase, and say it out loud ten times.

Then, while you’re rinsing the shampoo out of your hair, you’re going to close your eyes, and you’re going to recite that line ten times. You can always check to see.

Now, do it out loud because mumbling aloud is far more effective than saying it in your head. If you’re just saying it in your head, you’re going to get distracted. You’re going to make your grocery list. You’re going to have an argument with someone in your head. (laughter) It’s just what’s going to happen. So, mumble it aloud to yourself like Psalm 1 tells us.

And then the next day you get in the shower—hopefully you’re not skipping too many showers (laughter)—and you’re going to review that first phrase. If you need to look at it, fine.

• Look at it once.
• Say it out loud once.
• Review it—say it ten times aloud.
• Go to the next phrase.
• And you’re going to do the exact same thing:
• Read it out loud ten times.
• Close your eyes; mumble it out loud ten times.

And it may take you a week to get through two phrases. It may take you two weeks. There is no race. This is not a race. The blessing of memorization is the journey. And I know that sounds cliché to say. It just is. Some things are clichés for a reason. The journey here is the blessing because it is the work of rehearsing those words over and over that will bless you the most.

 

I was memorizing the book of Colossians. I think I started at the end of 2020—I can’t really remember. But I was standing in the shower, washing my hair. I’m working on Colossians, and I am on this phrase in the very first chapter, and I noticed, just in pausing on this little phrase, noticing how Paul calls God Jesus’ Father, and he calls God our Father.

And as I’m standing there rehearsing these words, it’s hitting me. It’s like the Lord is preaching a sermon in one phrase. I’m thinking, God, our Father. Jesus our Father. I’m trying to get the words down, and it dawns on me: “This is spiritual adoption. You have been grafted into the family of God. Jesus is your Brother.”

And I’m like, “This is such good news!” and I’m washing my hair! (laughter) It’s great news! So, I’m just meditating on this one phrase, and it is giving my heart so much joy. That’s the beauty.

Memorization is slow. It is such a slow process, and I am so glad that it is because, when I’m reading my Bible (which is a habit I will never give up—I love studying deeply and reading whole books), when I pause to memorize, it forces me to slow down. It forces me to think through every word. “Why was this word placed in this order? Why did Paul use this qualifier? Why did David say it like this? Why did he use this word picture?”

And when you think about it while you’re mumbling it, the Lord is just burying that Word in your heart. In the crevices and folds of your brain, it is there. It slowly just changes the way you think, which will change the way you live and change the way you speak and change the way you respond.

So, shower Scripture memorization. I really do recommend it.

If that’s not your jam, print out the text somewhere else and put it where you will see it regularly. (I also keep a copy on the windowsill of my kitchen where I’m standing at the sink washing dishes multiple times a day.) So it’s there, somewhere that you’re going to see it regularly. Maybe that’s the bathroom mirror.

Or, I don’t know, if you take a train to work. (I live very rurally, so that’s a weird idea to me.) But if you’re a city person, and you ride a bus . . . I mean, I don’t know if I’d recommend doing this while you’re driving. Your brain should be engaged while you’re driving. But if you have a specific mental down time, where it’s regular—whatever is regular for you—pair Scripture memorization with that task and do it every day.

So, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

And I want you to keep in mind that reciting it is not the goal. Recitation, standing up before a group of people and reciting God’s Word is not the goal here. Saturation is the goal. Soaking your heart with God’s Word is the goal because you can be the little six-year-old Glenna, Pharisee that she was, and you can stand and recite verses and say, “Look how good my memory is.” Or you can day in and day out, quietly and slowly, meditate on Scripture and watch the Lord change your life because that’s the goal. Right?

We meditate on God’s Word to delight in it. To delight in Him. To love Him more deeply. To stay far from sin. That’s our goal in Scripture meditation.

A couple of other practical tips:

There’s lots of different learning styles. There’s auditory, visual, and kinesthetic, I think is the other one. (You all are more science-y than me.) So there’s several different types of learning styles, and I would encourage you to try different methods. Even if you’re an audio person, try something that’s also visual. You may not know what works well for memorizing portions of Scripture in your heart.

If you are an auditory learner, though, no one has been more blessed by access to audio versions of Scripture than we are right now.

I’m a big fan of the Dwell Bible app. It does cost a little money. It’s a yearly subscription. This app will let you listen to any Scripture in any kind of accent that you like. (laughter) So if you like the British accent, you can do the British accent. You can pick your translation. You can pick ambient sounds or music in the background. There’s a sleep timer on it.

You can repeat passages, which is what I do. I will go for a walk, and turn on 1 Peter 1 and listen to it for thirty minutes. That’s a great way to get God’s Word into your heart in a way that’s different than reading or writing.

Speaking of apps, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Verses app. If you go to your app store or wherever it is that you download apps, it is a little navy icon (that’s not what it’s called. I was born in the eighties). It has a little rings on it, and it’s just called Verses. This app utilizes many different learning styles. It has tap-to-reveal, a word bank, and first-letter method, which I’m going to talk about in just a second. Speak into it, it’ll read it to you. And it has a great feature called “groups.” If you want to memorize Scripture with other people, you can both use the app. Create a group, and it’s got some accountability built in, which is fun. I always say when you can bring others into your spiritual discipline, do it. It’s such a blessing. Such a blessing.

So the Verses app is another resource.

Now, first-letter method—I do this periodically to review long portions of text. So, when you are going to write the passage out, say you want to review. You want to write out the passage. Some of you may benefit from just writing out the whole passage. It’s time consuming. If you don’t have the time for that—the first-letter method—you’re just going to write the first letter of each word. And as you’re doing this, your brain can go at the pace that it wants to go because you don’t really need the whole word.

So, if you’re memorizing Psalm 23, and you start with verse 1, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want,” all you really need to write is, “T.L.I.M.S.I.S.N.W.” (I hope that’s right.) And as you’re writing that, your brain can fill in the blanks. If I get hung up on a phrase, where I’m just having a hard time wrapping my mind around it, I’ll sit down with that phrase and a piece of paper and a pen, and I’ll just do the first letter of each word, like, fifteen times. That really, really helps. And it’s a fast way to do that.

There are a couple of companies who have utilized the first-letter method in their products. Dwell Differently is one of them. They do temporary tattoos. And they have a new verse every month. The design of the tattoo is built around the first letters of the words of that month’s verse. They’ll send you a new packet every month.

The tattoos are black and white. I am a multi-cultural family, so we utilize both of them. My kids love them. They’re really beautiful, actually, and a great conversation starter. If you’re wearing one, and somebody asks you, it’s an easy path to a gospel conversation. So that is Dwell Differently.

Some other things you want to utilize when you’re memorizing Scripture—utilize mnemonic devices. So, I’m memorizing 1 Peter 1, and Peter opens his letter: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Those are ancient cities. I don’t know where any of those places are. Like, how do you memorize a list?

Using a mnemonic device, I, in my shower, was trying to memorize the order of the cities, using the first letter. I cannot believe I’m about to share this—my mnemonic device was, “Please go call Amy and Ben.” I have no idea who Amy and Ben are. (laughter) I don’t know why I’m calling them. I don’t know who I’m telling to call them. But I formed a sentence with it, and I have been able to say the cities in order every time. So utilize devices.

I would also encourage music or rhythm. You know the Shane & Shane Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs albums? Great way to hide some Scripture in your heart—through music.

My family—my husband, my kids and I—we’re memorizing Romans 8:31–39 right now. And we get to this phrase in Romans 8:32—it is so hard to get your mouth around it. “How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” We just don’t speak like that.

So my seven-year-old pounds it out. (Pounding sound with each.) “How.will.He.not.al.so.with.Him.gra.cious.ly.give.us.all.things?” I don’t know why that works. It works every time. That’s a great tool if you have little people in your house who can’t read; bring them into your memorization, use a rhythm. What you’re doing: more neural pathways in your brain to get those words down deep so you do not forget them.

I have a lot more resources I could share with you. I’m going to give you a website. If you need more or just want some more, or I talked too fast—I usually only have one cup of coffee. Today I’ve had three. (laughter)

You’re going to go to www.glennamarshall.com/scripturememoryresources. Everything I’ve shared here, plus more, can be found there.

As we finish, I just want to encourage you, again. I know Scripture memorization can be intimidating. Don’t let it. It is a gift to you. There is no race. There is no timeline. You have all of the days that the Lord has given you on this earth to saturate your heart with His Word, to delight in His Word.

It is the daily work of memorization, of mumbling God’s Word aloud to yourself, that affects change in your life and renews your mind.

Again, the goal is never recitation. That might be a fringe benefit. You might want to recite it for someone. It can be encouraging if you want to recite Scripture for someone. But the goal here is saturation—to keep God’s Word before your eyes and in your heart and in your mouth to remember what is true about Him, about Christ, about you, about who you are now, as opposed to who you used to be.

What carries you through the Christian life is living closely to God’s Word and storing it up like a treasure in your heart. Give the Lord your mind so that you can love Him with your heart.

Nancy: That’s Glenna Marshall, giving us some practical ideas for memorizing Scripture. She’ll be back in a moment to pray for us, but first let me say that Revive Our Hearts is always seeking to point you to the Lord and His Word through trustworthy, biblical resources.

I want to let you know that today is the first day of a special sale of some of those resources. Now, did you hear me say “sale”? Don’t you love sales? Well, we have one going now, and we’re calling it “Meet with Jesus.” From now through January 23, we’re offering specific devotionals on sale, including titles such as The Quiet Place, a one-year daily devotional that I've written, and Fasting and Feasting by Erin Davis on the Revive Our Hearts team. This is a great time to save on devotionals for yourself or to give to a friend. We hope these resources encourage you as you spend time in God’s Word. You can find out all the details about the sale on our website, ReviveOurHearts.com.

Dannah: Thanks, Nancy.

You know, with all this talk about the importance of Scripture, I’m excited to tell you about a resource from Revive Our Hearts to help you dwell on the truths of God’s Word. It’s our brand-new Savor and Share Scripture Card Set. The pack includes fifty-two themed cards with lovely designs, a unique Bible verse on one side, and a word or phrase on the other to summarize it. It’s perfect for you to carry around, keep around the house, or gift a set to a friend—better yet, meditate on these truths together with a friend!

Let these Scripture cards renew your mind with God’s Word. It’s through a renewed mind that you get a revived heart. Visit ReviveOurHearts.com to get your set of Scripture cards when you give a gift of any amount. Or call us at 1-800-569-5959, and be sure to request your set.

Well, tomorrow, January 11, has been designated as a day to raise awareness regarding the issue of human trafficking. And our guests tomorrow have a ministry called Compassionate Hope. Al and Susan Henson help rescue girls from being trafficked. They’ll be our guests here on Revive Our Hearts. I hope you’ll join us for that tomorrow. Before we go, here’s Glenna Marshall to close us in prayer.

Glenna: Lord, we thank You for the gift of Your Word. We thank You that it is rich and true, and that we can read it a hundred times, and learn something new every single time. That it is a well we can draw from over and over and over. That it is useful for correction, reproof, teaching, training in righteousness, that it is no empty word, but our very life.

That You did not save us and just leave us here. You have equipped us for everything we need in life in godliness because You are so faithful and so good. And we are so grateful that You have given us Yourself through Your Word.

Help us to treasure it. Help us to pile it up in big, huge piles in our hearts. Thank You for the gift of Your Word. May we be ever changed by it. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. 

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