This week, our children went back to school.
Mothers around our community are letting out a collective sigh of relief. No more screaming kids. No more hearing, “I’m bored,” every five minutes. The house will once again be quiet from 8 AM to 3 PM.
School is back, and that means it’s time to get back to the routines, to the football practices, and to the homework.
But as my children get older, I’ve noticed something about their homework.
It’s hard.
I consider myself an educated man, but there are times when I look at their math homework, and it looks like a foreign language. I never realized how much I had forgotten from my school days – or how much I never learned.
The same dilemma often rears its ugly head in our spiritual life. Our parents take us to church as kids.
We go to Sunday School.
We learn about Abraham and Moses, Mary and Martha, Peter and Paul. We memorize the Commandments. We learn to sing, “Jesus loves me this I know,” and to trust that he is our Savior from sin.
Then we graduate. We take our first communion.
We get confirmed. We get into high school and college. We stop going to church because we know what we need to know. We believe in God. We believe that Jesus is our Savior. So, why go to church?
What we often don’t realize is how easily we forget. What we often don’t realize is how much we still have to learn. The devil loves to lull us into complacency, overconfidence – into thinking we know more than we really do.
The Apostle Paul warned the Corinthian Christians, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful you do not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). The Apostle Peter encouraged believers everywhere, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
We all need to continually hear, read, and study God’s Word. If we don’t, we quickly forget what we learned. God gets pushed to the back burner in our lives. We start to think that we are good enough on our own – that we are going to heaven because of what we do.
The devil loves to whisper in our ears, “You’re a spiritual person. You think about God every so often.
In fact, you’re probably more spiritual than all those hypocrites going to church. You don’t need some preacher telling you what to believe. Why bother going to church?”
But it’s a lie. A Christian never graduates from God’s Word. I started attending Sunday School when I was four years old.
My parents took me to church every Sunday. I attended a Christian grade school, high school, college, and seminary. I have been a pastor for 26 years.
Yet I am still learning new things from God’s Word. I am often reminded of things I had long forgotten. This week, a new school year begins. It’s time to get back to school, time to get the kids back into the routine, time to help them with their homework. If you’ve been away from God’s Word – if you’ve been hohum in your church attendance – it’s also time to get back, back to the routine, back to growing, back to learning. Because a Christian never graduates from God’s Word.
Pastor Andrew Schroer has been a pastor for over 25 years and is currently serving at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Edna, Texas. You can find his latest books, “364 Days of Thanksgiving” and “364 Days of Devotion,” on Amazon.com.
