May 18, 2015 | by: Chris Kiiskinen | 0 comments
This may be the shortest newsletter article from one of our Pastors that you have ever read! For sure it’s the shortest one I’ve ever written. Why? Because you will be helping to write it... kinda!
Before you read this article, I encourage you to put this down for 15 minutes. Pick up a pen and some paper. Write out all of the things that you already know that God desires for you to be doing or practicing. Oh, and do not use your Bible. Ready? Go!
If you have not done that and have just skipped to this paragraph, that’s okay, but I strongly encourage you to test yourself and see just how much you have already learned in your life about what God desires for you...you just might be surprised at how much you know!
A while back on a Thursday night at one of our young adult ministry meetings, I didn’t have a lesson. I planned it that way. As we began what would normally have been our teaching time, instead I broke up our group into 4 smaller groups.
Each group then was given 15 minutes to write down everything they knew God desired for them, without using their Bibles. Between the 4 groups, in that time span, a list of over 80 or 90 different things were written down.
For many of us, it might not be too hard to come up with a pretty big list! Why is that important? It’s important because if you are like how I used to be (and probably still am from time to time), it can be easy to come to church and be looking for the preacher to give you something “new” or different. It can be easy to let the things we’ve “heard before” to seemingly get pushed into the background. The problem with that is that sometimes this kind of unintended negligence can also make us forget “how” we are to be as a Christian.
Some of the things that probably made your list of what God desires of us as Christians are things like...
I’m sure that most of you can add many other items to this list. To remember what God desires is not only helpful to us, but it’s commanded (i.e.: Deuteronomy 8:11, Joshua 1:13, Nehemiah 1:8, Acts 20:35, et al).
Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:12-13, the following... “Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder.” He felt it was not only right, but his responsibility as a shepherd, to remind believers of truths they already know!
When you think about this, keep in mind that Israel was often guilty of forgetting the Lord (Judges 3:7) which would always cause them to walk away from Him and into trouble! You and I can easily do the same.
Failing to remember the things we have already learned, and seeking to practice those things, can produce other bad consequences that I’d encourage you to think about. An obvious one is that we simply stop paying attention to being Christ-like and being active in practicing the things that we know God desires of us. This spiritual laziness can then impact every area of our lives in negative ways.
The other, and less obvious one, is that when we stop practicing godliness we can tend to “feel” less godly. From God’s perspective, we haven’t lost any of the righteousness of Christ that we have been freely given, but we can begin to doubt or fear or wonder about how we are really doing. This can lead to discouragement, depression or even doubt of one’s salvation.
It can keep you from church and from fellowshipping with other believers because you feel like a lazy Christian, or feel guilty for what you are not doing.
You might start to think that people are judging you, when it’s really just your own conscience being convicted by the Holy Spirit. These are some of the things that can happen when we forget or neglect what we already know and let those things begin to slip away.
So in this short note I simply remind you to remember! Remember the things you have already learned about God and work to practice those things every day.
And the next time you hear a sermon that isn’t teaching you something new or different, thank God for the good reminder to follow Him that you just received and praise Him for being gracious and merciful for teaching you those truths in the first place!
Be an active rememberer!
Chris Kiiskinen
Chris Kiiskinen is one of the Pastors at Grace Bible Church
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