Hello everyone! In a recent get-together someone asked me some questions all pertaining to U.S. Naval history. It was five questions I think and to this person's surprise; I did not know the answer to any of them!!

Now, considering I was in the Navy for a period of time, I guess I should have known the answers or at least a couple of them; so the question is, does this mean I was a bad sailor? After all, there were bad sailors, we called them "shipwrecks". These sailors never seemed to be doing what they were supposed to or sometimes didn't know or pretended not to know what they were doing. Their uniforms were all disheveled and they were always late and getting caught unshaven and etc

Well, getting back to my point, I was a good sailor and in fact at one time I knew my Naval history or at least some of it, so what happened? Over the course of time, I didn't keep the things I learned in practice. In other words, I didn't keep studying and learning it, and so I simply forgot what I had learned!

This is so true when it comes to Bible study and there is a good lesson to be learned here. If we neglect to study and meditate on God's word, then not only will we not be increasing our knowledge of God and what He wants us to do, but over the course of time we will forget even what we have already learned.

The writer of Hebrews gives a stern rebuke in Hebrews 5:12 when he says, "you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food." This is just as true today! Without consistent Bible study, we will need to go back and relearn the first principles of God. Hopefully we don't need that, instead we want to grow in the knowledge of the Truth, and the only way to do that is to study and meditate on God's word.

We are told in 2 Tim 4:2, "to be ready in season or out of season, to convince, rebuke, exhort and to teach with all longsuffering." In order to do this, we must have the things contained in God's word fresh in our minds. So, with the new year approaching so fast, now is a great time to commit ourselves to doing just that!!

Buster