WEDNESDAY 18th
Psalm 77
NIV (vv11-15) – ‘I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.” Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph’.
ESV (vv11-15) – ‘I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.’ Selah
‘I will remember’ – the memory is an incredible faculty, to be able to remember and to recall things from the past. I wonder what your earliest memories are, I suppose the older we get the more likely we are to forget, or our memories will fade, for me there are specific things I can remember from around the age of 3 onward, memories that are special, perhaps one of the most precious earlier memories is that I can remember seeing my granny just days before she died when I was just six years old. A granny who I would only know for a short space of time. We cherish the good memories. Unfortunately, our minds remember things that we wish we could forget, the sad times, the bad times, the difficult times.
The psalmist here today is recalling and remembering the good things that God had done, the wonders of old, the mighty works, his demonstrations of power among his people and as he remembered the past, bringing the good things God had done to memory it gave him confidence and hope for the future.
Remembering what God has done in the past is a positive action, for it encourages us, it inspires us and gives us reason to declare to others the goodness of God.
I mentioned that we also remember things we would rather forget, the wonder of God is that he chooses to forget those things that we want to forget, he chooses to remember them no more, so all that we did that was unholy, unrighteous and unacceptable in God’s eyes before we came to faith, things that perhaps we would be ashamed about if they were ever brought into the open are forgotten, not remembered any more by God because the shed precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient to blot it all out, that is good news.
There is an important aspect of remembering in the Christian faith, I touched on it yesterday concerning the cup of blessing, the sacrament of communion, those precious moments when we draw together as God’s family, usually on a Sunday morning to share in communion, an act where we remember what Christ has accomplished for us. We remember through our partaking of the bread of his body that was bruised, beaten, and broken on our behalf and cruelly hung with nails upon the Cross and we remember through our partaking of the cup, his blood that was shed, making atonement for our sin. Our remembrance of these things are so important, it keeps us focused on what God has done through Christ in reconciling the world to himself, and more personally in reconciling us as individuals and can I add here because the subject is the precious blood, when the devil tries to dig up your past, trying to get you to remember the things that you don’t want to remember, trying to bring to your mind those things that God has chosen not to remember and has blotted out, think about the blood, think of its efficiency, and begin to give praise that ‘God has blotted them out, remember;
God has blotted them out,
My sins like a cloud hung over me,
He blotted them out and has set me free,
His word I now proclaim,
How thro’ faith in Jesu’s name,
You too may know this pardon full and free;
And then with me you’ll shout,
Your sins are blotted out,
Oh, come and find your all in all in Jesus.