Friday, March 20, 2015
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Someone said to me, "Don't forget to tell your wife!" I said, "Wait a minute. I'd better write it down. I'm Mr. No Gig." They looked at me kind of funny. See, computers have gigabytes of memory. And I think sometimes I've reached mine, so I am like "Mr. No Gig". Look, I'm too young to be losing my memory. I think I've just used it up, that's all. There's not room to put anything else in there.
So, I have to write things down; like things we need at the store, appointments, a list of errands. I think that's pretty normal no matter what your age. You've got to write down an idea. I always carry this 4x6 card with me everywhere. I mean, I even have one close to my bed. I know it's crazy, but I've got to write it down when it comes into my head, and that helps me remember it because I have a lot to do. I've got to write down phone numbers or have them stored in the phone. I've got to write down directions. A lot of us write down the things we don't want to forget, except for maybe the really important ones.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Jesus Journal Igniting Your Spiritual Growth."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 103. These will be familiar words, "Praise the Lord, O my soul." He's talking to his own heart. "All my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits." Here's the problem. All too often I do forget His benefits.
I mean, there is not a day that God cannot be seen active somewhere in that day, many somewheres. If you're looking for God-sightings, he's there: his love, his supply, his faithfulness, his protection, his mercy. They show up in all kinds of ways. "His mercies are new" according to Jeremiah "every morning."
Okay, then I see them, but then I tend to forget them. David says, "O my soul, don't forget His benefits", so spiritual amnesia is nothing new; it's happened so many times before. Nehemiah 9 for example talks about where the saints of that day literally forgot all of the manna that God had supplied from heaven; the water that had come from the rock; how God had given them possession of the land – these awesome things that God had done.
And He says, "But they refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them." They forgot God's interventions. They chose what was easy, and it turned out to be hard. They got 40 years in the wilderness. When we forget God's benefits we make spiritually, cowardly decisions, we miss the next miracles and maybe we miss the will of God.
I have tried keeping an encouragement journal; a Jesus Journal. In there I write down the day's date, I'll write God's work in that day whatever it was. And then it's exciting at the end of the day, or maybe the next morning, to show the places that God was at work; benefits I don't want to forget.
Now you put the next day's date down by faith, because you haven't seen it yet. And then you pick up that journal and you read it when discouragement hits. When you do, you are looking at the fingerprints of God all through your life. It's the same God who's there for you in that day. Your faith will grow and your trust will be more activated as you remember God's breakthroughs-all those other God-sightings.
One of the greatest things I ever did for my relationship with Christ was to buy a notebook to keep a daily record of what God was saying in my time with Him. I cannot urge you enough to make that a daily part of your relationship with Jesus. Not just an encouragement journal, but a journal to write down what He just said to me out of His Book and what I'm going to do differently today because He said it. It is so incredible to be able to pick up a notebook and read the history of God's working in your life right there in your own handwriting.
We really do write down what we can't afford to forget, and there is nothing more important to remember than those daily touches of God on your life. So get a big notebook!