There is one thing that many people take for granted and that is the power of taking notes. I see many people who do not take notes while listening to sermons and I wonder if they know what they are missing.

There is a popular saying that the faintest pen is smarter than the sharpest brain. You miss a lot when you don’t take notes. My professor of Mathematics who got his PhD in the year 1928, told us that you have to read something ten times to remember it all. If you did not take notes, how will you read it over again in order to remember?

Some messages are not very easy to swallow at the time you are hearing them, but one day, the Holy Spirit may take you back to that note and then open it up to you on a deeper level. It is a matter of even more concern when ministers of the gospel who expect the congregation to be taking notes when they are preaching don’t take notes when other ministers are preaching. If you don’t have an actual notebook with you, at least you can use a note taking app on your smart phone or tablet. When a sermon is going on, the Holy Spirit is likely to whisper some things into your ears; they could be prophecies or instructions. You need to write those things down so that you don’t forget. Also, as the preacher is speaking, to help you practice what is being preached, you may need to write down one or two actions you will take in line with the sermon. You need to also write down aspects of the sermon or passages of the Bible that you would like to conduct deeper study on.

You must understand that these notes are treasures from which you and others coming after you can gain from. At the Open Heavens International Centre, there are some of my old sermon notes from over 30 years ago; they are treasures for many who visit the gallery to draw lessons from.

In Revelation 1:19, God told John to write the things he was seeing down as a treasure for us today to know what is to come in the end time. We also saw similar instances from Isaiah 30:8 and Jeremiah 30:1-2. Beloved, you should take notes whenever you are listening to or studying the Word of God.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.