Ever hear a talk or read a passage in the Bible and then a few moments later struggle to remember what it was about? This doesn’t always come down to whether or not we have a good memory. In the parable of the sower, Jesus said, ‘Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.’ The enemy doesn’t want us to remember what God’s said to us. He doesn’t want to let God’s Word produce fruit in our lives. So how can we retain it? 1) Write it down. When we make notes on what we read and hear, we’ll retain more, be more impacted, and get much more out of it. God told Habakkuk: ‘Write down the revelation’ (Habakkuk 2:2 NIV), and we need to get into the habit of doing that too. 2) Pray it through. Unless we pray over the Word we’re hearing, we’ll remain unchanged by it. We need to ask God to help us understand how the things we’ve been taught can apply to us. 3) Discuss it with others. God’s Word is like a seed that multiplies and grows when it’s watered by conversation with others who share our faith. 4) Practise it daily. It’s not good to just remember what we’ve been taught, we also need to do something with it. We need to allow it to change us. In the Bible, James wrote: ‘Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says’ (James 1:22 NIV). The more we practise all of these steps, the easier it will be to prevent the enemy from stealing the seeds of God’s Word from us.  

What Now?

After your next church service, put these four steps into practice.