Oh Remember!

Recently I have been reminded of how faithful our Lord is despite our shortcomings and especially despite our faithlessness. How often do we worry, fear, or complain about something God isn't doing or is allowing to happen to us and forget how He has as Romans 8:28 promises, worked all things together for good?! What a sad sad thing it is that we forget so often and so quickly...we forget the good things our God has done and we forget His promises that are so clearly laid out in Scripture. Although this is a topic I have written on in previous blogs I feel compelled to write about it once more because I firmly believe it is a thought process that plagues the believer so often. We look back to the Israelites and are appalled at what we see...how easily they fell back into worshiping idols for example despite the fact that God had delivered them from the hand of the enemy time and time again. But when we begin to evaluate our own lives, we do the exact same thing...

Let us examine this for a moment...Psalm 106 is a perfect example of exactly how faithful our God is and how we need to REMEMBER that constantly.
" 7 When our fathers were in Egypt,
they gave no thought to your miracles;
they did not remember your many kindnesses,
and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.
(Do we think about it? Do we remember the faithful promises He has fulfilled in our lives? Do we remember how He saved us from His wrath and rescued us from hell? Do we remember how He has continually provided for all our needs?)
"I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the LORD has done for us— yes, the many good things he has done for the house of Israel, according to his compassion and many kindnesses." ISAIAH 63:7

8 Yet he saved them for his name's sake,
to make his mighty power known.
(That is why He did this for the children of Israel and for us as well. He saved them and has saved us for His glory, for His name, and to show himself mighty and King to all)
"Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness." PSALM 115:1

9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up;
he led them through the depths as through a desert.
(Think about how incredible that is for a moment. When we are worried or anxious about God not fulfilling some sort of need in our life let us look back to biblical examples of God's amazing deliverance and provision like here and in Exodus where He dried up a sea!)

10 He saved them from the hand of the foe;
from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them.

11 The waters covered their adversaries;
not one of them survived.

12 Then they believed his promises
and sang his praise.
(Think about this for a moment...are we not the same? Do we not believe God and his promises when He is faithful? It is easy for us to believe God and worship Him immediately after He does something amazing for us. In fact that should be our response...whenever God blesses us we should be so thankful and sing praises to Him constantly, but what about when we are going through a "hard time"? Do we still believe his promises? Possibly but the sad thing is that we may say we believe them but we may not actually believe them because if we really believed them and trusted them, we would exhibit unwavering faith and the ability to praise Him even in the storm. Remember it is only by His grace and strength that we could ever do this.)
"Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;" PSALM 95:6

13 But they soon forgot what he had done
and did not wait for his counsel.
(Isn't that the truth of our lives as well? We soon forget what He does and we then just begin acting like we are the "controlers" of our life. What a false sense of reality)

14 In the desert they gave in to their craving;
in the wasteland they put God to the test.
(As we begin giving into the flesh and the wicked desires of our heart we give in more and more. Therefore we must be on guard to our sinful hearts.)
"The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?" JEREMIAH 17:9

15 So he gave them what they asked for,
but sent a wasting disease upon them.
(Be careful what you wish for! God will give us over to our desires, even the sinful ones, if we keep pushing and asking...look at Romans and you find that clearly stated.)
"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. " ROMANS 1:24

16 In the camp they grew envious of Moses
and of Aaron, who was consecrated to the LORD.

17 The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan;
it buried the company of Abiram.

18 Fire blazed among their followers;
a flame consumed the wicked.

19 At Horeb they made a calf
and worshiped an idol cast from metal.

20 They exchanged their Glory
for an image of a bull, which eats grass.

21 They forgot the God who saved them,
who had done great things in Egypt,
(May this never be us. We may never say that we "forget" God but we sure live that way sometimes...We live like there is no God watching our motivations, intentions and actions. We live like this far too often.)

22 miracles in the land of Ham
and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

23 So he said he would destroy them—
had not Moses, his chosen one,
stood in the breach before him
to keep his wrath from destroying them.

24 Then they despised the pleasant land;
they did not believe his promise.

25 They grumbled in their tents
and did not obey the LORD.
(Then during our times of distress do we grumble and complain and continue to disobey the Lord??)
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." JAMES 1:2-4

26 So he swore to them with uplifted hand
that he would make them fall in the desert,

27 make their descendants fall among the nations
and scatter them throughout the lands.

28 They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor
and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods;

29 they provoked the LORD to anger by their wicked deeds,
and a plague broke out among them.

30 But Phinehas stood up and intervened,
and the plague was checked.

31 This was credited to him as righteousness
for endless generations to come.

32 By the waters of Meribah they angered the LORD,
and trouble came to Moses because of them;

33 for they rebelled against the Spirit of God,
and rash words came from Moses' lips. [c]

34 They did not destroy the peoples
as the LORD had commanded them,

35 but they mingled with the nations
and adopted their customs.
(Can we take heed from this. Do we adopt the customs of this world? Do we compromise?)
"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 JOHN 2:15

36 They worshiped their idols,
which became a snare to them.

37 They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to demons.

38 They shed innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
and the land was desecrated by their blood.

39 They defiled themselves by what they did;
by their deeds they prostituted themselves.

40 Therefore the LORD was angry with his people
and abhorred his inheritance.

41 He handed them over to the nations,
and their foes ruled over them.

42 Their enemies oppressed them
and subjected them to their power.

43 Many times he delivered them,
but they were bent on rebellion
and they wasted away in their sin.

44 But he took note of their distress
when he heard their cry;

45 for their sake he remembered his covenant
and out of his great love he relented.
(What an amazing God. He hears the cries of His kids and rescues them even despite their faithlessness. Despite the fact that they were unrepentant for times and mocked His grace and goodness.)
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,who have been called according to his purpose." ROMANS 8:28

46 He caused them to be pitied
by all who held them captive.

47 Save us, O LORD our God,
and gather us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
and glory in your praise.

48 Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Let all the people say, "Amen!"
Praise the LORD."

Amen! Let us praise the Lord! What an amazing God we have. He truly is sooo good. If all He ever did for us was rescue us from eternal damnation that would be more than we ever deserved. Yet He goes far beyond that. We need to examine our lives daily and see how good our God is. We need to look back on the past of not only our lives but especially in Scripture and how God has fulfilled His promises time and time again. If we only would REMEMBER constantly who He is and what He has done our lives would look radically different because we would be living by faith and in complete contentment with everything that came our way. Let us pray that God would give us the strength to remember.