Recycling God's Word

Around the internet, I see a lot and I mean A LOT of recycled jokes. There are memes, photobombs, and fails. I see people posting the same image or story on Facebook a lot. I'm thinking, "I have seen this image or story far too many times to count!" Yes, it get's frustrating. It's almost like people don't know how to be original any more. At least that is my personal opinion. I sit in church or school albeit a religion class and hear people complain about how they have heard this a million times! Why do they have to listen to this again? I heard a boy about 11 whisper to me in Sunday School, "This is so boring!"People really turn their ear off to Bible stories or passages because they "know it by heart."

I have noticed more and more that we think everyone is "recycling" God's word. Yes, you read that correctly. Now, if I remember my Bible correctly, it says in Isaiah 55:10-11, "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."

So, if I am reading this correctly, God's word will never return empty or void! I am not encouraging someone to "recycle" past sermons but rather to revisit those passages. I know there are some pastors who take sermons they have preached 20 or 30 years ago and preach them again. I think that is a bit of a gray area from the standpoint that you can preach the same message and have a different conclusion or hear the same message and get something different out of it but preaching should be lead by God. You shouldn't run out of ideas and then have to use past sermons because the Bible is full of lessons to learn. I have read my Bible several times and am always refreshed when I read a passage and something brand new jumps out at me! That's exciting!

I understand that it get's discouraging sometimes to read the Bible whether it be because you don't want to or like I said, you've read the passage over and over again for a Bible study and just have beaten it to death and really are not expecting to take anything brand new away from it. This is why we as Christians always have to have an open heart and mind while reading God's word. If you don't, it's as if we're reading just some book that is merely for pleasure than to grow in Christ. So, the next time your pastor preaches a sermon you heard a thousand times or you come to a passage you know by heart or those genealogies in the Bible, don't turn the preacher off or skip those passages, listen to God and keep an open heart and mind. God will speak to you. I guarantee it.