Dear Church,
I want to continue a theme from last week’s Monday Notes, where we talked about ignition and intention, how Sundays light a fire (through the Word proclaimed), but Monday through Saturday requires us to tend to that flame. Let me go a step deeper.
James warns us about a very dangerous deception. James 1:22 tells us, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Notice the warning. It is possible to hear truth, feel stirred, and still be spiritually unchanged, not because the Word lacks power, but because it was never allowed to sink in.
David understood this. In Psalm 1 he writes, “Blessed is the man… whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law, he meditates day and night.” He says meditates, not skims, not samples, not scrolls past, not stick to a reading plan to finish reading the Bible in a year. The Hebrew word carries the idea of murmuring, chewing, turning something over slowly. That is savoring the Word.
All of us are living in an age of conspicuous consumption: quick articles, short videos, endless scrolling. Even spiritually, we can become collectors of content instead of cultivators of depth. As the saying goes, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
Paul tells the Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). Dwell. Not visit. Not inspired. Not brush past. Dwell. The Greek word means to take up residence, to settle in, to inhabit.
Studies on learning retention tell us something interesting: without repetition, we forget the majority of what we hear within 48 hours. Let me ask you, can you name three takeaways from the sermon preached 2 weeks ago? But spaced repetition, returning to the same material intentionally, dramatically increases retention and transformation.
That principle is not new. Scripture has always assumed repetition. Deuteronomy 6 tells Israel: “These words… shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently… when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
Jesus said in John 15, “Abide in Me… If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…” Notice how abiding in Christ and His words abiding in us are intertwined. We cannot separate the presence of the Spirit from the saturation of the Word. If we want hunger to last beyond Sunday, we must practice returning. Let me be clear: I am not discouraging personal Bible reading plans, small group studies, or exploring other passages of Scripture. Those are good and necessary. What I am saying is this, do not move on so quickly that you fail to go deep. Do not trade depth for volume. Allow the Word from Sunday to stay with you, to press on you, to shape you throughout the week.
Ignition is beautiful, but cultivation is what bears fruit. And we are known by our fruit.
Be encouraged,
Mathews
