If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my walk with the Lord, it’s how easily we as humans like to forget. We forget to grab the keys before walking out the door. We forget to take the trash out. We forget people’s birthdays. We forget deadlines for work and school and bills. This culture of chronic forgetfulness was so bad that Apple made a “reminders” app as a marketing strategy. Even worse, this epidemic problem is only multiplying with the increasing expansion of technology. No one can deny the over-stimulated and distracting world we live in. More than forgetting our keys, phones, or birthdays, however, is the detrimental effect of forgetting who we are and who God is. Even back in 587 B.C., Isaiah prophesied the destruction that forgetfulness did have and would have on humanity. He reminded the people of Zion to “look to the rock from which (they) were cut and to the quarry from which (they) were hewn”. He was telling them to remember where they came from and to remember what God had delivered them from. Even the most good-intentioned Christian can have their mind drift from God’s purpose for their life and focus on the world around them. The absolute worst thing a Christian can do is forget the depth of His love and His sacrifice on that tree 2018 years ago, yet I find myself doing it so often.
This Holy Week has been a reminder of the zeal He has for me. Isaiah 53 and 59 stopped me cold when I finally individualized the cross as not only the greatest love story in history for me, but also the most gruesome sacrifice in history because of me. Every time I have bitterness or anger in my heart, I am the one taking a whip to Jesus’ back. Every time I speak out of my flesh rather than the Spirit, I spit on Jesus’ crumpled body. Every time I hurt someone, I drive the nails into Jesus’ wrists. Every time I complain or have an ungenerous heart, I slander His righteousness.
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
We held him in low esteem.
He took up our pain and bore our suffering.
He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our inequities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.
Yet He did not complain.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
Though He had done no violence, He was buried as a criminal.
Though He bore the pain of humanity, He did not open His mouth.
So next time I tell myself that I’m not as bad as him/her, I pray that the Father reminds me “yes, but are you as good as my son?” (never to shame, but out of humility)
Easter is a day to remember His sacrifice, but that does not mean that the day after Easter is a day to forget it. I pray I remember that the severity of my sins put Jesus up on that cross, but also that He did so so willingly and so joyfully. My sins made me so unrecognizable to my Father that He had to literally shield His face from me, yet God taught Uncle Jesse how to say “Have mercy” and sent His Son as my unpayable, blemishless lamb on my behalf. Wow God is so good.
I pray that this generation does not conform to the forgetful culture because this fact is too big not to remember.
Easter 2018 is not just one day to remember that HE IS RISEN. I pray in Jesus’ name that it is a LAUNCH for LIFESTYLES of remembering the true sacrifice that Jesus made on that Friday because of us and FOR US. Wow God loves us so much.
Thank. You. Jesus.
Oh yeah, and the Bible shows that Satan is pretty forgetful too, so Jesus decided to remind him on Sunday who really conquers the world.
“Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.” Isaiah 46:9
-A
