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On
Remembering What You Are Told
By Pastor Jack Hayford
I chuckled
when a friend recently said, “I have an excellent memory. It’s just
short!”
We all lament
our forgetfulness. Memory is a frightening tattletale: It reveals
our real and immediate priorities… what’s most important to me now.
This doesn’t
mean if I forget my wedding anniversary that my marriage or my wife
isn’t important to me. It just humbles and embarrasses me with the
fact that the celebration date came at a time when something else
was crowding my mind for prior attention.
That doesn’t
excuse me for my neglect, nor exempt me from responsibility for
being thoughtless. It just catches me with my priorities out of
order.
Jesus said,
“He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”
(Revelation 2:7,11,17,29; 3:6,13,22). He says it repeatedly in the
letters He dictated to John, and often make very similar statements
in His earthly ministry (Matthew 11:15, 13:9,43; Mark 4:9,23; 7:16;
and Luke 8:8, 14:35).
It is startling
to note that these words—If you have ears to hear listen!
—are spoken only by the Lord Jesus. In all the Bible, only He speaks
this command. That fact certainly establishes priority, doesn’t
it?
I can remember
a few instances from my childhood when I got in trouble for not
doing what I had been told. It wasn’t that I didn’t listen, it was
that I didn’t remember. Because even we who listen are inclined
to forget, Jesus urges us to let His sayings “sink down into [our]
ears” (Luke 9:44).
In the coming
week, I challenge you to take time to review some of the things
God’s Spirit has been whispering to your heart over the past six
months. We need to be careful to remember what we have been told.
Some of us
may need more than a gentle reminder. It might be that the accumulated
wax of careless habit needs to be washed away with a stream of Holy
Spirit “ear irrigation.” People who have had that physical treatment
tell me it hurts. The spiritual wash job might hurt, too. But it
will be worth it.
Hearing and
heeding can save us a great deal of pain.
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Jack
Hayford Ministries
14800 Sherman Way, Van Nuys, CA 91405-2233