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Forgetting to Remember

James 1:21-24, But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

Short-term memory, senior moments, brain fog, many of us have had that moment when we simply forgot what we were doing. You walk into a room and say, “why did I come in here?” But James is talking about spiritual blindness that we ALL suffer from in our lives. You may read that verse and say, how could anyone look in the mirror and then forget what he looks like when he looks away?

Examples

In church, we hear God's word in a way that touches our hearts. We take notes, we nod, say amen, or even raise our hands because we agree with what’s being said.

Eighteen minutes later, we do the exact thing we learned not to do.

While reading our Bible lesson, we highlight passages and maybe even make notes in the margins or on our phones.

Two hours later, we struggle with the same thing we learned how to overcome in God’s word.

We spend some time mentoring someone on how to get through some rough patches in their life. We may even pray with them, asking God to move in their lives and give them wisdom & peace and reveal His Will for their life.

Four days later, we struggle with something that we don’t take to God in prayer.

Seems James knew exactly what our patterns were, even if we didn’t.

We have such a blessing of being able to read God’s word as we have examples to learn from people in the Bible. We have examples to follow, and we have others to avoid. I know I would often wonder how the Israelites could be so unfaithful with the pillar of fire or cloud leading them. They would see God and then forget Him overnight.

We are just the same. We have the inspired word of God in our hands to read, reflect, learn, and pray over daily. Yet, we still fall into the same patterns over and over.

We seem to forget to remember what God has already done for us.

Questions:

Do you make time to spend on God’s Word?

Do you have a hard time applying what God reveals to you through His word?

Challenge:

I challenge us all to get in the moment with God, be in that moment, and stay in that moment. Then, when we get out of that moment, remember that moment.