The Importance of Praise in Memorization

I want to take some time over the next few months to focus on praise, and it's importance in our every activity.

I'm not talking about just any praise, but rather the praise of the Lord.  He is our God, our Creator, our Savior.  Our everything.  So let us examine the importance of praise incorporated into our memorization.

Here I believe is the key verse:

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." -Colossians 3:16 emphasis added

As is shown in this verse, one of the goals of memorization is so that we can sing Psalms and hymns to the Lord.  Because most of the psalms are written in the form of praise, Paul is reminding us to keep our emphasis on praise.

As I memorize, I often like to stop and just take some time to praise God using the verses I have memorized.  For example, today I am working on memorizing some of Romans 2, which talks about how Jews should not judge others.  And then in the midst of all his exhortations and logical arguments, Paul talks about the righteous judgment of God.  As I read this this morning, I paused for a minute to meditate on the fact that His judgments are always righteous.  I came away from that memorization session with a smile on my face, knowing that I have a righteous Judge.

So, why should we memorize Scripture with the goal of praise?  Through memorization, we gain a deeper understanding of who God is.  That is our ultimate goal for memorization -to dive deeper in our relationship with Jesus Christ.  Praise forces us to think about Christ and think about who He really is.

Praise also brings glory to Christ, which is our ultimate goal in life, both with memorization and everything else we do.  God wants nothing more than to have His children sing His praises, and memorization gives you the knowledge you need to do it.

So all you memorizers, I encourage you to take time today to praise the Lord through the verses you are memorizing.