God's Call to Remember
I was talking with a friend recently who has been going through some testing for early onset dementia. His journey began when he and his wife took a weekend trip out of town. The trip was without incident but after they returned home their credit card bill came with charges he didn’t recognize. He then asked his wife why there were motel and restaurant charges on their statement from the city they had visited? Very concerned, his wife began to ask him questions about the weekend. She soon discovered he didn’t remember anything about their weekend trip. It was like the weekend never happened, all memories were completely gone!
It is, of course, a terrible thing to lose one’s mental capacity. But one does not have to get old to have problems remembering. People of all ages suffer from a kind of spiritual amnesia that is just as detrimental to our souls as dementia is to our physical lives. We are often quick to forget God’s kindness and faithful provision in our daily lives. And because we are slow to remember we live as though all that we enjoy in life comes to us by our own hand. We tend to forget our position as believers in Jesus Christ and often live defeated lives that are short on joy and filled with worry and anxiety. Through carelessness and neglect, we tend to forget the basic teachings of our faith and are quick to embrace the teachings and philosophy of the world. In short, we tend to be people of poor memory and limited perspective.
Nowhere is this more evident than in our observance, or lack of observance, of the Ten Commandments, some of the most basic teachings of our faith. Most of us have studied the 10 commandments maybe even memorized them, but the question is are we keeping them? One of the more striking examples in my own experience is that of remembering the Sabbath (Lord’s day) as a day set apart for worship, rest and waiting upon God. As a boy growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, there was a much more relaxed pace to life in general but especially on Sunday. There were no organized school or athletic events scheduled for Sunday, and especially not Sunday morning. Grocery stores were closed, gas stations were closed, department stores and shopping malls were closed and for the most part, only essential personnel such as policeman, firefighters, hospital staff etc. worked on Sunday. Contrast this with the schedule that many keep today. For the most part, it is business as usual and the frenetic pace of Monday thru Saturday is carried into Sunday with little regard for God’s command to “remember the Sabbath.”
Another example might be our tendency to violate the First Commandment and allow “other gods” to assume God’s rightful place in our lives. Martin Luther reminds us that in keeping this commandment that “we should fear, love and trust in God above all things.” While the author A.W. Tozer says we can reveal the priorities of our heart by asking ourselves questions like, “What do we want the most out of life? What do we think about the most? How do we spend our money? What do we laugh at? What kind of friends do we keep?” These questions, and others like them, serve to reveal the priorities of our hearts and the false gods that creep into our lives, sometimes without our even being aware that it has happened.
The sins of idolatry, misuse of the Lord’s name, violating the Sabbath, dishonoring of parents, hatred (murder), adultery, stealing, bearing of false witness and coveting our neighbor’s possessions are all rampant within our society, and to a lesser degree within the church. Jesus said in John 14:21a, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.” Jesus begins with the obvious that we must first have (know and understand) His commandments but also that our keeping (obeying) them is an expression of our love for God. As we continue to walk out our celebration of Jesus raised from the dead, I would invite you to reflect upon these basic teachings of our faith and ask yourself if you are truly keeping the commandments. There is no better way to express our love and gratitude to God then to live out God’s call to remember His commandments.
Author
Pastor Bruce is the Executive Director of God's Living Stones. He lives in Omaha, NE, with his wife Barb. They have two adult children.
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