Don’t Just Grow. Improve!
"Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame if I cannot write better sermons now than I did seven years ago." John Wesley
“May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2). “Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All glory to him, both now and forever! Amen” (2 Peter 3:18).
I find Peter’s beginning and ending words of his letter to be an interesting thread. The idea is clearly that we are to have an abundance of grace and knowledge and constantly expand and live according to it. The middle portion of the book is an obituary for people or worse- a curse- upon those that forgot to carry that out.
What am I doing or redoing today that is a demonstration that I am further down the road with Christ than I was the last time I had similar experiences? Am I relying on “day old bread” instead of availing myself of “fresh manna?” Am I parceling out day old bread instead of preparing the fresh manna given by the Lord?
Rather than moaning “if I would have known then what I know now,” I should be eager to communicate “knowing what I know now, I will . . . .” Life experience, a broader understanding of ministry and the Word, as well as a willingness to admit that I may have placed the wrong emphasis upon lesser important things all lead to the necessity of rethinking, repackaging and re-experiencing as well as re-teaching the same material. But, when we revisit these things, we should be more excited about our expanded understanding than simply willing to restate our old conclusions, using or old experiences and our old notes. The old is good. The new is good. But, the old is only really good if it is RE-newed.