The Need to Remember

I thank my God every time I remember you. —Philippians 1:3

God has a perfect memory, and yet, if we are to believe the psychologists, so have we. Psychologists say we never really forget. Well, you could have fooled me, but that’s what they say. We do forget, however. When we look back on our past we remember things that were pleasant. Yet it is one thing consciously to remember things; the sad thing is there are some things we don’t forget, especially if something is pointed out to us. One of the things that will make hell, hell is that you will have a memory in hell. In Luke 16:25, Abraham said to the man who was in hell, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”

But even on this planet, sometimes even as Christians our memories have to be jogged. At the Last Supper Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). One of the reasons for the Lord’s Supper is to jog our memories, to remind us how we know we are going to go to heaven. For when we eat the bread and drink the cup, there before us are symbolized the body and the blood of Jesus.

The first time the word remember appears in the Bible is in Genesis 9:15-16, where God said to Noah, “I will remember my covenant. … Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant.” Sometimes it seems as if God is slow to remember. Sometimes we come to Him and cry, “O God, remember!” The question is, we ask God to remember, but do we remember? There is one thing God appreciates, and I cannot stress this too much, He appreciates being thanked. Remember to thank Him.

Excerpted from All’s Well That Ends Well (Authentic Media, 2005).