Staying “Fresh”

I used to have a couple goldfish when I was about 7 or 8. I had bought a smaller fishtank that could fit on top of my dresser. One of the things that I learned while I had my fish was that you occasionally needed to change out the water in the tank and replace it with some fresh water. I had a water filter in the tank, but the water would still need to be refreshed at some point.

I will sometimes break open a bag of chips, eat a few handfuls, and then go and leave to do something, and forget completely about the rest of them for the rest of the day. Later that day or even the next day, unless I closed the bag up properly, the chips will be rather stale and not as crunchy or fresh as they could be. The same thing with a loaf of bread: if you don’t close up the opening on the bag, but leave it open, at least some of the slices of bread will get dried out and stale, instead of staying fresh.

Once you complete reading the New Testament, you don’t not read it ever again. You can start it over again, studying it even more. Maybe you will notice something that you never had understood before, and now you do. We can always learn something new.

You can read a book or watch a movie and not fully understand or notice everything that had happened. So you can read or watch it again, and maybe that time you will notice something that you didn’t before. Maybe something will become “clear” and you will understand something new.

Sometimes a person might think that a teacher in a school learns their knowledge at college and once they become a full time teacher, that they don’t go and learn anymore. But that is not the case. Every so often, the teachers are required to go and “refresh” their memory, and learn more things that they didn’t know before.

I have read the New Testament several times for years, and I still am learning new things that I didn’t understand before. And I know there are still many, many more things that I still have to learn. So I continue to study and keep God’s word fresh in my mind.

And that is why Paul might have written the same things several times to some of the churches. He told them that it wasn’t a hard or tedious thing for him to have to do, but it was a good thing for them to hear.

“Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.” Philippians 3:1

Finally, whenever you read the scriptures or hear it preached, pay close attention. The more times you can receive the word into your mind, the more you will understand, and the more you will retain in your memory.

“Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.” Hebrews 2:1

Keep God’s word fresh in your mind.

In Christ,

Andrew