Excerpt from “Memo Devo: Memorization as Devotion”
Week 2 - Titus 3:3-7
Day 1

“For we ourselves also were in times PAST UNWISE, DISOBEDIENT, DECEIVED, serving the LUSTS and diverse pleasures, living in MALICIOUSNESS and ENVY, HATEFUL, and hating one another.” ~Titus 3:3

My Mnemonic: “PUDDLe ME in Hate”

I love this verse's detailed description of exactly why EVERYONE needs Jesus so desperately. It uses slightly different keywords in different translations, but in the Revised Geneva Translation, which I use, this mnemonic helps me to recall them more easily. I especially anchor to the ME in the middle because it is so logical for the keywords it represents.

In August of 2009, when I first began memorizing and dramatizing long passages of Scripture, I also began to petition the Holy Spirit for new and more effective ways to approach the lost. I had come to realize that there is often a kind of “Gospel fatigue” among unbelievers with single verses like John 3:16 and 8:32. People sometimes tune them out as soon as they are brought up because they are so familiar. Not that these single verses have no power of course. They are as powerful as the Spirit would like in any situation. But in terms of how my message was being received, I began to feel God was giving me this passage as an alternative “elevator Gospel” if you will. One that could still be quoted quickly but goes a little deeper and is more likely not to have been heard before by an unbeliever. It also really shows my own depravity right away and lets someone know that I am “living in sin” and in need of a savior just as much as they are.

The only difference is that I know it.

Here’s the whole passage:

3 For we ourselves also were in times PAST UNWISE, DISOBEDIENT, DECEIVED, serving the LUSTS and diverse pleasures, living in MALICIOUSNESS and ENVY, HATEFUL, and hating one another.

4 But when that KINDNESS and that LOVE of God our Savior appeared toward us

5 - not by the works of RIGHTEOUSNESS which we had done, but according to His MERCY - He saved us, by the WASHING of the new birth, and the RENEWING of the Holy Ghost,

6 which He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

7 So that we, being JUSTIFIED by His grace, would be made HEIRS according to the hope of eternal life.

Learn more about the Tide Technique of memorization