Sanctification: Memorizing Scripture

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

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Quick update on my wife: I’ve been meaning to let readers know that my wife is doing very well. We cannot thank you enough for your prayers. At her most recent doctor visit, they did an EKG and the doctor said it was “perfect!” He also went ahead and took her off all her meds except 2.5mg of Amlodipine. For the past three to four weeks, she has had no problems with her heart; no AFIB, no fast beating, nothing.

As we know, God is, simply put, GOOD. Now, would He have been good had my wife died? Yes, without doubt, but I’d be dealing with the grief of losing her. Instead, God brought her heart situation to the fore for two reasons: first, He clearly wanted her heart situation fixed and that was accomplished. I’m still amazed at how young her cardiologist is and was able to fix her heart. He did so by ablating the four pulmonary veins leading to/from her heart where heart tissue in-vitro had grown beyond her heart and began sending out their own set of signals that contradicted what her heart was actually doing. Second, He needed to teach me especially that I needed to learn to trust Him more. Both have been accomplished, however, I’m not done learning to trust Him, but I can more clearly see just how many opportunities I am given to exercise trust in Him throughout the day.

We would like to thank you all for your prayers and petitions on behalf of my wife. She is really starting to feel so much better now that she has come off the meds, the beta-blocker especially. God has worked and it is marvelous in our eyes.

This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. (Psalm 118:23 ESV)

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In our last article – Cooperating in Sanctification[1] – I talked about the actual meaning of sanctification and the believer’s involvement in that process. In a nutshell, I spoke of the fact that each believer is commanded to join in with the Holy Spirit’s efforts in sanctifying us, in preparation for our glorification once we leave this life. So as not to be misunderstood, I pointed out that cooperating with the Holy Spirit in our process of sanctification is something that we must be involved in on a daily basis and throughout each day. This does not mean that we are “working” for our salvation or even maintaining it. Our salvation, which began when we saw our need for a Savior and by faith embraced Him, resulted in our justification. From that point onward, we were and remain completely justified (righteous) before God. There is nothing we can do to eliminate that label and standing before Him. However, we will also face the BEMA Seat Judgment of Jesus where our works will be judged (but not whether we have salvation or not).

Just to be absolutely clear, our efforts in cooperating with the Holy Spirit as He sanctifies us during the remainder of our lives, is primarily an attitude that we develop. There have been many times when I felt completely incapable of putting on the right attitude and frame of mind. During those moments, my cooperation with the Holy Spirit resulted in heartfelt prayers and pleadings with Him to do what He needed to do to accomplish what He wanted to accomplish within me. This was often despite the way I felt about something. So, while I may have been tempted hard to give into the flesh and become angry at some instance or situation I was facing, my pleadings with Him amounted to asking Him to simply overcome my own flesh so that He could work and create within me the proper attitude He wanted me to display and feel. Sometimes, that is all we can do. Had I tried to be what He wanted me to be, I likely would have been using my own strength to accomplish it and that would not have pleased Him and I would not have grown.

However, in going to Him with a heartfelt and earnest desire to express something that was more in keeping with His will (instead of simply doing what I was being tempted to do), allowed Him to work and I recall a solid answer to prayer so that instead of giving into my fleshly nature, I actually acted in line with His will. I saw myself becoming more patient, more caring, more reasonable and in that way, I believe He was glorified and I grew a bit.

This is all part of my sanctification. You have areas in your life that are in need of sanctification and one of the reasons you may come to think that you are constantly doing the same old fleshly thing is because God keeps bringing you back to that in order to work within you to overcome a bad trait or habit. Paul the apostle says as much in Romans 7:21-25 ESV.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Paul is so good about getting to the heart of the issue, isn’t he? We can all relate to what he is stating. We want to do what is right, what pleases God, but we are too often bound by our sin nature. It seems to control us way too often. Yet, Paul, while pointing out how bad things can be for him within, looks to Jesus as the only true Redeemer. Jesus, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, will create within us truly clean hearts, hearts given to serving God, not our sin natures. But of course, our job is to actually go to Him during those times when we are torn and being dragged toward fulfilling the desires of our sin nature. It truly is a battle and the battle is won in our minds when we deliberately turn our backs on our sin natures and the temptations promoted by it, instead, looking to Jesus as our true Source of strength. He will overcome sin in our lives if we deliberately turn to Him. Sometimes, all we can do is plead with Him to help us and He will follow through.

That is sanctification and it is ongoing for now. But what other areas in our lives also fall under this topic of sanctification? Well, reading, studying and even memorizing His Word is a big one. If the believer is not daily reading God’s Word – GOD’S ACTUAL WORD TO US – that believer is already on very shaky ground and the likelihood of victory over sin is far away.

Coupled with reading and studying His Word is memorizing it. Why? As I mentioned last time, we do this because as David said, we hide His Word in our hearts for recall when it is needed (Psalm 119:11).

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you!

There, David tells us point blank that hiding God’s Word in the heart is for the main purpose of not sinning against God. But more than that, it helps us to understand who God is and how He helps us.

For a long time now, I’ve enjoyed memorizing things. Years ago, I was involved in school plays and later on, community theater. It was always a challenge for me to memorize my parts and it was a challenge I took to with delight and a bit of fear. What if I forgot my lines? What if I couldn’t remember where my “mark” was? That wouldn’t be good so memorizing my part was essential. Looking back though, it is funny how I remember nothing of all the lines I memorized. In one instance, I had 26 pages of single line script to memorize just for my part. I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. Why? Because the context is completely missing.

When I began memorizing Scripture, I simply did the same thing I had done when I memorized a part in a play. I repeated the verses again until I could say them without looking at the printed page. Once I had accomplished that, I felt as though I had done what I needed to do. Yet, in most cases, if I did not continue to repeat those verses to myself daily, I often forgot them outright.

It wasn’t until I entered the counseling certification program that I realized my problem. I was simply memorizing Scripture for the sake of memorizing Scripture. There was no actual context to what I was memorizing!

The main teacher at the place where I am matriculating offered some very good insight to all students in one of his courses. In a nutshell, he noted that as we memorize Scripture, we should be repeating it back to God as prayer. In this way, we start meditating on it, contemplating it, rolling it over in our minds and arrive to a fuller understanding of that Scripture. So, it’s not how many verses you can memorize. It’s which verses you memorize and begin to understand them much more fully. In this way, you are far less likely to forget the verse as it has come to mean something to you.

Here is an example of what I mean, written by Thomas Manton, (1620–1677), an English Puritan clergyman.[2] He takes the one verse from Psalm 119:11 and writes a ton of things about that one verse. This was often done by the Puritans, who would take a verse and write an entire book on it, fleshing it out, providing the meaning and giving plenty of application.

So let me give you my own example, but much shorter than what Manton would offer. Psalm 40:17 is a verse I’ve mentioned before. Here it is.

But I am poor and needy; Yet the LORD thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; Do not delay, O my God.

I absolutely love that verse! It truly speaks to me because I have taken the time to reflect on it where God is concerned. As I have memorized that verse, I find myself praying it back to God, so I might do something like this in my prayer.

Lord God, I am poor and needy…I realize just how much I need you because without you I am nothing, but with you I am everything in Christ Jesus. For years Lord, I have not liked to admit that I am needy, yet I am realizing that being needy is the first step in understanding that I need Someone outside myself to come to save me from myself and from hell. I am SO thankful that I am needy and that I am poor. Because I am poor in spirit, my true need for You has come to the surface. Lord God, thank you so much for being the answer to my own neediness and poor state spiritually. I am now learning to love the fact that I am needy and poor.

I also am understanding that this state of being poor and needy is a very necessary trait to have on a daily basis because it throws me on your mercy and the indwelling power of your Holy Spirit! Thank you Father that this neediness I have is what pushes me toward You!

Father, the fact that you think upon me is absolutely astounding! You actually take the time to consider me and all my ways. It’s not that you need to do this to better understand me because you already fully understand me! You do this to let me know that I am important to YOU; that you love me as you love all Your children. You want me to know that as Your eye is on the sparrow, how much more is Your eye on me and my life and all the decisions I need to make every day. Thank You Lord God for thinking upon me. Thank you so much for deigning to stoop to me, one is who is so undeserving of such a wonderful situation. You think upon me because You care so deeply for me. You know my frame. You remember that I am but dust.

My Lord and my God, You are my help and my deliverer. You are the only One who can truly help me overcome the sin nature and each situation that would cause me to fall from you in sin. Yet, in each situation, I can come to You acknowledging that you ARE my help and my deliverer and with expectation, know that you have a plan to deliverer me. That may mean going through the fire of life’s circumstances with me or saving me from it. That is for You to choose and for me to trust!

Do not delay, O my God in helping me rest in You and whatever situation I face. I know you will not delay, but it may seem as though you delay when in fact, it is You providing a way of escape as you see fit. Thank you, my God that you care so much for me, that whatever it is I face, you are in it with me. I praise You Father for your love, your care, your concern, your Presence. In the precious Name of our Lord, Jesus, we pray. Amen.

This is a much shorter version of what the Puritans often did and we lack today because we lack much of their teaching. But reading what I just wrote helps provide a small picture of how to not simply memorize Scripture for the sake of memorizing it, but memorizing it to better understand the context of who God is, how much He loves us, and how involved He seeks to be in our lives.

In the next article, I will go more deeply into this subject even expanding on it. We will reference Daniel 3, where we see three young men who faced their own fiery situation. Did God save them from it or within it? How did they come to feel so assured of God’s help and deliverance? They didn’t simply memorize Scripture did they? They started there but then went way beyond it to more fully understand the meaning of who God is and how He helps us on a daily basis. This is part of our daily sanctification.

[1] https://studygrowknowblog.com/2025/10/30/cooperating-in-sanctification/

[2] https://www.gracegems.org/33/manton_hiding_gods_word.htm

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Source: https://studygrowknowblog.com/2025/11/03/sanctification-memorizing-scripture/