If you sat down for a few minutes and thought really hard, would you be able to remember all of the conversations that you had with people that you talked to over the past year? And I’m not talking about just remembering that you spoke with them, but could you remember every detail from each conversation? Unless it was something of monumental importance, I think that I would be safe in saying that a very large majority of us could not.
The reason why is because we didn’t really pay a close attention to what was being said. The words of the conversation float around in your head during the actual conversation, and then when you leave those words will begin to float away and disappear from your memory.
I must admit, this has happened to me probably more than I would like to admit. I might have been working or focusing on a project when someone started to talk to me, asking me to go do something, and then leave. I may have even nodded my head in agreement and said “ok” to them, but as soon as I finished what I had been working on, everything that I had heard in the conversation just a little while earlier will have already disappeared from my mind, as I sit trying to remember what exactly I was supposed to do. I wasn’t really paying close attention, was I? I wasn’t “giving earnest heed” to what I had heard.
Hebrews 2:1 “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.”
To understand better what this verse means, I am going to define what two of these words mean. The word “earnest” means “to have serious purpose; intent, or fixed closely.” It also means to be diligent.
The second word is “heed,” which means “careful attention; notice; to observe, regard, or to mind.”
We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard…. This means that we need to intently pay attention to the things that have been preached to us from the Holy Scripture. We need to observe and regard everything that we have been instructed to do with great intent.
One of the things that comes with getting older is sometimes that the memory can start to become “fuzzy” as more and more memories begin to fade away. We do not want this to happen with God’s word. We do not want to begin losing our memory of what we have learned from Christ.
That is what the devil wants, however. He wants us to forget everything that we have learned from the Bible, and he will try to push other things in your mind so that you are not fully focused on storing the knowledge of God in your mind. The devil will try to distract you with the things of the world, trying to pull your attention away from Christ. We need to resist these distractions (James 4:7) and give our full, undivided attention to learning and the application of the Spirit to our lives.
This is why daily reading and meditation of the Bible is such an important routine that we all need to have. When we repeatedly spend time reading our Bibles, we will be pushing those holy words deeper and deeper into our memories, and if you push them down deep enough, there will be no one who can erase them from your mind.
Keep the Word fresh in your mind. Read it daily, and don’t let anything become more important to you that it starts to distract you and pull you away from Christ’s words.
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 