REMEMBER

I received an e-mail and a picture from a friend I have known for, at least, 66 years. The correspondence was of our high school choir teacher, Mr. Mullins, and Mr. Dillon, our band director. Both have recently died but seeing their young faces brought memories rushing through my mind. The older I get the dearer the memories. I think those truly must have been the “good ol’ days.”

Just as I cherish the memories of my growing up days, I cherish the memories of my growing up in the Lord. These are intermingled with family and friends’ memories. These are wonderful memories, like a grand collage’ in my mind and heart, that are played over and over again -memories of walking to the church’s Youth Center and playing all kinds of games and just having fun with other Christian young people. I remember the “Prayer and Fasting Band” which met every Friday noon at the church’s prayer room, where we actually prayed all of our lunch period. I remember we had our own prayer service on Wednesday night at the church. We had a wonderful youth pastor who taught us, counseled us, encouraged us and discipled us in how to grow and be an overcomer in our Christian walk. Unless my mind goes before my body I think I shall never forget these memories.

The Word also tells us we are to cherish and remember a lot of things. Even God promised to “remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth when He looked at the rainbow” (Gen.9:15,16).

God told the Children of Israel to remember the day they came out of Egypt (bondage). Do you remember the “day” you were delivered out of the bondage of sin and were made free through the blood of Jesus Christ? That is what the Lord’s Supper is all about – Jesus said, “This do in remembrance of Me.” We are to remember His suffering and dying so we could become a child of God (Luke 21:10).

Then in the fourth Commandment, God tells us to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Gen.20:8-11). Do we remember our Sabbath to set it apart from other days and make it special and sacred?

David said in Ps.20:7 that “many may trust in horses and chariots but he would remember the name of the Lord.” As we learn the names of the Lord we will remember that it is Jehovah God Who is our Everything – the Great I AM!

I love how the Amplified Bible says, Eccl.12:1, “Remember (earnestly) also your Creator (that you are not your own, but His property now) in the days of your youth, before the evil days come or the years draw near when you will say (of physical pleasures), I have no enjoyment in them.”

There are some things we are not to remember. In Isaiah 43:18-21, God tells His people not to remember the things of old where they had miserably failed, time and again. But God was going to do a new thing, then His people would praise Him. Even as Paul said in Phil.3:13,14, that he was forgetting the things of the past and straining forward to what lay ahead – the goal to win the supreme prize to which God in Christ Jesus calls us all.

The most glorious thing is that God will not remember our sin, Heb.8:12.
The last admonition to “remember” in the Bible is in Rev.3:3, where God calls us to remember the lessons we have received and heard, lay them to heart and obey them and repent because we know not what hour He will come. It is soon!

Do you remember the time you met Jesus face to face, accepted Him and turned from your sinful ways and you became a new creature in Christ Jesus? If you can’t remember – make a memory NOW! Let’s have sweet memories from this day forward!

Mary Jones