Remembering
Remembering God’s presence and promises, can be a key to getting through difficult times. We all have a history with God, and it’s important to remember and reflect on that history. The problem is, there is just something about human nature that causes us to forget rather quickly what God has done for us. And when we forget what God has done in the past, we tend to lose hope in the midst of our present circumstances.
Stones, pillars, and altars: Numerous times throughout the OT we see the people of God set aside a stone or set them up as pillars in remembrance of what God did in that location.
• We also see numerous times where the people of God build an altar as a place of worship in response to something God did there.
Joshua 4:4-7They piled up stones to remember the miraculous crossing of the Jordan river, not just for themselves but for their children.
What can we take away from this?
1. Remembering has to be deliberate. They didn’t leave the remembering of this event to chance.
2. We have to tell and teach our children and the next generation about the things God has done.
3. It has to be something tangible and obvious; our memories are too feeble.
A Book of Remembrance
• Numerous times we also see the people of God remembering what God has done by writing it down.
Exodus 17:10-15 God tells Moses to write down the story of this great victory on a scroll.
• God is going to wipe out the Amalekites, so there will be no memory of them.
o With their enemy completely gone, the story of what God did will quickly fade.
• But God doesn’t want the memory of what He did to be lost, so He commands to write it down.
Psalm 77 is a great example of remembering in difficult times
Mark 8:14-21 Do you see how quickly the disciples’ thoughts return to the earthly realm?
• Not only had they failed to remember, but they had also failed to understand.
• In verse 17, Jesus says don’t you understand? Are your hearts hardened?
• Then, in verse 18, he says ‘Don’t you remember?”
• Notice how Jesus starts dealing with their hard hearts by first asking them to remember.
o His antidote to their hardheartedness and lack of understanding is remembering.
• Remembering also has a way of bringing revelation to a situation that we didn’t understand at first.
• But what’s the point of Jesus having them remember here?
o To see past their immediate lack, and see the Kingdom at work in their circumstances.
o And possibly to build faith for another miracle.
• Remembering puts our minds and hearts back on God and off of our present circumstances.
Remembering: The Biblical Concept of Remembering
