Ecclesiastes 1:9 English Standard Version (ESV) What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

We can all agree that new discoveries are being made every day. Advances in medicine have closed in on cures for diseases that once killed many people. Technologies allow us to examine in greater detail sub particles and the outmost reaches of our galaxy. Yet this comment by King Solomon is as true today as it was in his day.

How can that be? Because it is only new to us. God has seen it all and already knows what is to come. We only want to acknowledge truths we know, evidence of things that can be examined and explained.

Repetition is required for us to be able to hold firm in our memory those things we hold to be true or near and dear to us. We have offsite memory storage facilities because our minds cannot hold the vast knowledge available to us. We use search engines to recover data in storage. It seems there are more and more “clouds” appearing in this information technology era.

There is however a need for us to hold important information that we use every day. Those things we place within the memory circuits of our minds. We need them to be accessible on demand, without delay with a certainty appropriate to the importance of the information.

Isaiah 32:6 English Standard Version (ESV) For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity,
to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the Lord, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.

How do we guard our minds against this danger?

Place the truth within easy reach. We place things in memory by repetition so that when needed the truth is available at that very moment. Do not stop reading His Word.

Galatians 5:16 English Standard Version (ESV)

Keep in Step with the Spirit

¹⁶ But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 

Some of us have seen the Three Stooges movie You’re in the Army now. In the movie Curly Joe could not keep in step with the soldier in front of him. He would stutter step over and over again until eventually he had everyone behind him in chaos. It was funny to watch but not to his commander.

Getting out of step with the spirit does not just affect our walk, it influences others. Our ability to understand and obey our Lord is seen by those closest to us. We are to be examples to new believers in walking with our Lord. Now comes the hard part.

Whose are you falling in step with?

“I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,

For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,”

While I did not quote the addresses of these scripture, these are Paul’s writings. Look at the progression. Imitate me, imitate Christ, imitate God, be examples in the Word, and be examples in sufferings.

Have those we follow exampled the sufferings that mark those who walk in the Spirit? It was the Spirit that led Christ into the wilderness to suffer and be tempted of Satan. Do we earnestly expect that walking in the spirit is going to be a cake walk?

God shows Himself powerful in adversity.