Will We Remember

Someone said, "To err is human; to forget, routine." Sometimes it is good to forget. God Himself forgets our sins when we repent of and turn from them. In Hebrews 8:12 God promises their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." It is healthy to forget and forgive what God forgets and forgives in myself and others. Tragically, some people are too forgetful, for they fail to remember what God commands us to never forget. Six hundred years before Christ, through the weeping prophet Jeremiah, God asked with a broken heart, "Can a virgin forget her ornaments, Or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number." (Jeremiah 2:32) People can, and often do, forget God.

In 2 Timothy 2:8 the apostle Paul reminds Timothy to do what we would think no preacher, elder, or Christian would ever need to be reminded to do: "Remember Jesus Christ." The Lord's Supper itself is a memorial service designed to remind us every Lord's Day of the awful price paid for our spiritual freedom. Beautiful songs help us remember: "While We Feast, `Christ Gently Whispers', 'Do This In My Memory.'" If not careful, we can forget what it is the memorial service itself is supposed to help us remember.

Memorial Day to many means nothing more than a holiday celebrated in May with picnics and hot dogs and cook-outs, the day that begins summer vacation season. But Memorial Day was originated to help us remember the service and sacrifice of dead servicemen and women of all wars. We must never forget that our physical and spiritual freedom have come at a high cost.

At a Veteran's Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on November 1 l, 1985, President Ronald Regan spoke words which have both patriotic and spiritual application: "It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray-haired. But most of them were boys when they died. They gave up two lives-the one they were living and the one they would have lived When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for their country, for us. All we can do is remember. "

Jesus gave up everything for us. Will we remember? Eric