I haven’t always liked “reminders.”
Inherently, a reminder occurs because we forgot the first time—or the last 10 times—what we were told. Nobody likes to think he is so incapable of remembering.
More than once as a boy who loved to daydream, my parents would send me upstairs to the bathroom to wash my hands for supper, yet I would brush my teeth instead. At other times they would find me several minutes later staring at the mirror making faces or in a near catatonic stare. “Jimmy, what are you doing? The food is getting cold! Wash and come down NOW.”
Peter knew he was going to die. He had important things to say. “I consider it right . . . to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me” (2 Pet 1:13-14).
I read Peter’s writing and the rest of the Bible because I need to be reminded. A lot of what I read and hear from the Bible, I forget. At least that is what my behavior shows me. So I want to remind myself often about Christ’s instructions.
There comes a time when the excuse, “I forgot,” will not do. It is up to me to keep myself alert to His words, so as not to miss something more than supper.