1-17-2023

Good Morning All,

        Malachi 3: 16-17; “Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.” 

     We like to remember often.  The Statler Brothers asked, “Do you remember these?” Mary Hopkins sang “remember how we laughed away the hours” Tom T. Hall “remembered the year that Clayton Delaney died”.  Do you remember any of those? 

    Too often we try and remember items or thoughts or ideas that, at the time seem so important that we will never forget them, only to have foggy memory cloud the truth.  “Does anyone remember where we put…?” gets asked a lot.  As faulty as our “remembering” can be, it is somewhat amazing that God places emphasis on remembering in the Bible.

    God told the Israelites to “remember the covenant”.  Later, we are told to “do this in remembrance of me”.  In our verse we read of a book of remembrance.  We are told to do things in remembrance.  So, what does that mean?

   We use the word “remember” as a simple mental exercise.  I remember a mild winter and I remember hard winters.  But I get fuzzy on the exact year, and which outnumbers which.  I remember we cancelled Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the first Sunday of Christmas services one year but not exactly which year.  I remember that the Steelers and the Cowboys played a fantastic Super Bowl game but not which one.  A small group of us were looking at a confirmation picture and we couldn’t remember everyone in it.  We may even look at our wedding picture and wonder who the flower girl or ring bearer was.  So why does God tell us to remember?

    Remembrance in the Bible is more than a mental exercise.  It is an emotional, physical, and experiential exercise.  We remember our wedding, the birth of our children or our grandchildren.  We remember the loss of loved ones along the way.  We remember a home that burned down.  We remember and we experience it not only in our head but also in our heart; we feel it all the way down.  The importance of this remembering is that it is personal.  When we remember God and his grace, we should always add the words” for me.”  God did this for me.  Our remembrance is personal and incredibly important. 

    Remember that Jesus died and rose “for you.”  When you celebrate Holy Communion, his blood was shed “for you”.  When we pray, God hears “you”.  So we want to remember what Jesus said, we want to remember God’s promises; not just as a mental exercise; but as a very personal act of love by God for you and we can always remember that “They shall be mine, says the Lord of Hosts”.  Do all that you do in remembrance of God’s great love.

Dear Father in heaven, you remember your people and give to them the blessing which they never deserve.  We give you thanks that we are that people.  Move our remembering from our heads to our hearts and through our hands.  In Jesus precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret