Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard.  – Revelation 3:3

One of the constant warnings God issued to His people in the Old Testament was not to forget, often to little avail.  One of His most common charges to them was that they had forgotten.  Specifically they forgot: the “things they had seen,” “the covenant,”  that they had “provoked” the Lord, “all his benefits.”   Most of all they forgot “The Lord who brought [them]…out of Egypt.”     In contrast, God would not forget them or His promises.

Human beings are subject to spiritual amnesia.  We forget.  We forget God’s blessings.  We forget our sins.  We forget our promises to God.  We even forget God.  Phillip Yancey confesses that when he takes a trip, gets out of his normal routine, “it will suddenly occur to me that, except for a cursory blessing before meals, I have not given God a single thought all day.”  I don’t know about you but that “hits me dead center.”

At it’s simplest, living a life in the Spirit is living in remembrance of God. That is, to live our lives paying attention to God, with an awareness of living it before God.

However, that does not come easily or naturally.  It takes the “D” word, the word which our nature and our culture want to banish.  It takes Discipline which involves practice, focus, intention.  We will slip back at times and need to repent, but as we walk with Him, we expect that our sense of his presence will be more constant and more important to us.  So in the midst of so many distractions, which challenge us all, remember God.

Filed under: belief, Dedication, Discipleship, Life style, Obstacles, The Journey |