To Forget or to Remember?

To Forget or to Remember? by Dr. D. James Kennedy
“Do this in remembrance of Me.” Luke 22:19 “…forgetting those things which are behind…” Philippians 3:13

I am sure that Christians must get confused when they read a verse like this. Paul says, “This is what I do, I forget those things which are behind.” And yet I have preached sermons on a number of occasions on “remember.”

Jesus said, “Remember Me.” We are told over and over again in the Bible to remember.

Are we to forget or are we to remember?

Obviously we are to do both, and the question is: What are the objects of the verbs, remember and forget? There are certainly things that we are to remember. We are to remember what Jesus Christ has done for us upon the Cross.

The things that Paul is talking about forgetting would be of two classes. Just like a runner or skater skating for 1500 yards, they have to forget their successes or failures in a hurry and not sit back and rest upon their laurels.

I think it is particularly true that as they get older people begin to rest more and more on their laurels and stretch less and less toward the prize, the mark of the high calling of God. We need to forget about our victories and not simply float on them, but to reach out to the things that yet remain to be done. Nor should our past failures weigh us down.

Let us thank God for what He has done in the past, as we strive to serve Him in the present and future.

My Lord and Savior, thank You for what you have done for me. Help me to not be a prisoner of the past with its failures or its victories.

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE ARE ABLE TO STRETCH FORWARD.

Today in History

Today in History
1973
"The Gulag Archipelago" is published

On this day in 1973, THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “literary investigation” of the police-state system in the Soviet Union, was published in the original Russian in Paris.

The book was the first of the three-volume work. The brutal and uncompromising description of political repression and terror was quickly translated into many languages and was published in the United States just a few months later.

Solzhenitsyn’s massive work detailed the machinations of the Soviet police state from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution to 1956. In the preface to the book, however, he warned that reading the work would be “very dangerous” for Russians in 1973.

The book was important in that it maintained that police terror had always been essential to the existence of the Soviet state. This deviated from the standard Soviet line that such terror had only come about during the time of Stalin and evaporated upon his death in 1956.

Solzhenitsyn admitted that political repression eased during the ensuing Khruschev years–the author himself was freed from political prison during that time. However, he believed that since Khruschev’s ouster in 1964, the Soviet state again resorted to intimidation and terror. His disappointment at the reversion of his country to these scare tactics influenced his decision to allow the publication of his book.

The book was an instant success in the West, but Soviet officials were livid. TASS, the official Soviet news agency, declared that the work was an “unfounded slander” against the Russian people.

On February 12, 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, stripped of his citizenship, and deported. He eventually settled in the United States. In the 1980s, he refused Mikhail Gorbachev’s offer to reinstate his Soviet citizenship, but did return to Russia to live in 1994. Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure in Moscow on August 3, 2008. He was 89.

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Single-Minded Devotion

Single-Minded Devotion by John Van Schepen
Scripture Reading: John 1:19-34; 3:26-30
“He must become greater; I must become less.” John 3:30

Nothing deterred this wilderness preacher from his single-minded devotion to Jesus. From the beginning, John made clear that he was not the Messiah (Christ). His ministry was about pointing people to Jesus.

When Jesus came to John to be baptized, John’s voice rang out, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Neither petty arguments nor the fact that his followers left him to follow Jesus (John 3:26) caused John to lose focus. He simply said, “He must become greater; I must become less.” I love the words of John 3:29, which say John was full of joy because he had heard the bridegroom’s voice.

At this time of year, children and adults often ask, “What did you get for Christmas?”

How quickly we lose focus on Jesus, who came to give us salvation. Instead, we think of ourselves and the things we have or don’t have. Ask yourself today, “Am I full of joy because I have heard the Savior’s voice?”

If you cannot answer "yes" to that question, please reevaluate your priorities and align your goals and dreams with those the Lord who loves you has for you.

One day Jesus will return. Then all who have heard his voice and have faith in him as the Savior will join with God’s people, singing, “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!” (Revelation 19:6-7).

What a day that will be!

Dear Lord, help me to avoid getting caught up in my own interests and those distractions that so easily turn me aside from you. God in heaven, guide me daily to stay focused on Jesus and his amazing love— now and until he returns. In his name, Amen.

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Thoughts on James 4:4

Thoughts on James 4:4 by John W. Ritenbaugh

"Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

To have a warm, familiar attitude with this world is to be on good terms with God's enemy. What does it mean, in more practical terms, to be a friend of the world? It is to adopt the world's set of values and wants, to desire what the world wants instead of choosing according to divine standards or divine truths.

In other words, if a person does that, he has actually made himself subject to Satan because Satan is the god of this world! That is a choice that we want to avoid.

The worldly person will almost invariably choose to satisfy himself and take action on his desire, which eventually produces confusion, division, and war. It cannot be otherwise because the spirit of the world is the spirit of Satan, and laws are at work that will produce what they are designed to produce.

That was the problem in the congregation to which James wrote. If another apostle had been writing it, such as the apostle Paul did in I Corinthians 3, he would say, "You are yet carnal." These were converted people but still carnal, and they were showing it through their choices.

It was not that they did not have the Spirit of God but that they were still weak spiritually. They were choosing to fall back on what they had in the way of character, understanding, knowledge, and vision from the world, and by this, they showed that Satan was still dominating their lives.

This is understandable because Satan is a wily and powerful adversary—but he can be overcome and defeated. Christ defeated him at Calvary, and we can defeat him too because Christ is in us and He has given us the power to be "more than conquerors" of God's ancient foe who is our adversary.