Take Note...

I know that no one likes taking notes at school (trust me, I know, I have to take a lot!) but I believe that it is really important to take notes when it comes to our Christian walk. I often am listening to a sermon or reading my Bible and I hear something that I really like. I think, "I am definitely going to remember that." But, I never remember unless I write it down. Whenever I am in Sunday School or a church service, I try to take notes. But recently, I have started taking notes while I do my devotions as well. Doing this has really helped me learn a lot. I used to think that there wasn't a whole lot that I was able to get out of reading the Old Testament. I mean, I acknowledged it as inspired Scripture but I didn't think that there was much I could get out of it to apply to my life. But, I started taking notes and realized that there was just as much applicable stuff in the Old Testament as in the New Testament. I learned some valuable things about God and who He is. And, because God is the same now as He was back then (Malachi 3:6), those attributes are the same today. OK, so I learned attributes about God, but what am I supposed to do with them? Joshua Harris says, "We're either building our lives on the reality of what God is truly like and what He's about or we're basing our lives on our own imagination and misconception." A.W. Tozer writes, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God." The attributes of God are so important; we live our lives based on what we think about God! For example, if we truly believe that God is a just God who hates sin, would we sin as much? If we believed that God works everything together for good, would we complain as much about our current circumstances? I realized all of this because I simply started taking notes on my Bible reading. My next post will give examples of things I learned about God from taking notes. I hope this isn't too jumbled up to understand!