It’s a day of ‘remembrance’.
Even though we are living overseas, the 25th April is a day we remember what so many men and women from Australia and New Zealand sacrificed in the trenches of war to gift us freedoms we have today. In fact at one point here in Botswana the Aussies and the Kiwis would get together and have a dawn service.
This year the RSL and Australian schools conducted a ’Schools Remember ANZAC Commemoration Competition’ which was an art competition featured on ‘A Current Affair'.
We also remember ANZACs every time we eat and share the delicious ANZAC biscuits that my husband makes and everyone loves! Originally apparently called ’soldier biscuits’ and usually made as a slab where bits were broken off as needed. They were made without eggs so they would last the journey to the soldiers. Some like them crunchy and some like them chewy.
However, in following on from the previous blogpost about the thief on the cross wanting Jesus to ‘remember’ him, ANZAC day is a good time to once again think about the honour context of ‘remembering’.
To remember is to respect, because to remember is to take the time to allocate time in your mind and thoughts, and shows that the matter or person being remembered is thus of importance and value and significance. To remember is to acknowledge the value of something or someone of worth. It is to give honour and place. Thus in Proverbs 3:5,6 we are told to ‘acknowledge’ God in all our ways - to remember to give Him priority in our thoughts and considerations and attribute right honour to Him that should come before and above everything else. We are not to go along in our own ideas and undertanding and forget about God, and what He says, what He wants, what He is planning, that His character is love and goodness and faithfulness, that He sees and knows etc..
We all crave and desire to be valued as it signifies that we are loved; that we matter. It shows that we were made not to be self-sufficient individuals but to live in inter-dependant community and ultimately dependant on the one to whom we matter the most - God.
The motto of ANZAC day is ‘lest we forget’. This is not talking about a lapse of memory but a decision not to pay attention, not to treat as important, not to value properly. When we forget in this way, we disregard. To disregard is to disrespect, attribute no worth or value, and ultimately despise. It’s important not to ‘forget’ but to ‘remember’.
As we consider these nuances of meaning in the word and concept of ‘remembering’, there are also many ways in which we can further learn about our honour relationship with God and our functioning on this earth, when we think about it in terms of remembering and how Scripture talks about ‘remembering’…When we consider the concept of ‘remembering’ in terms of honour, we grow our understanding of being in relationship with God through Christ.
My ESV concordance says the word occurs over 200 times in Scripture but let me pick up on just a sample that might help to expand our understanding and appreciation of the meaning this word brings to us:
1.. God remembers that we are dust. God honours us in not expecting from us more than who he created us to be and to do as human beings dependant on Him. He doesn’t expect us to be God or to be someone different from who you or I are (not as an excuse for sinfulness, but in our legitimate design as individuals who are human and with diverse talents and abilities, weaknesses, frailties, and limitations.). Psalm 103:14
2. God will remember our sins no more when He forgives them. Isaiah 43:25 Hebrews 8:12
3. Jesus promised the thief that he would remember him for welcomed entry to His eternal Kingdom of Paradise. Luke 23:42
4. To enter eternal death begins with God saying ‘depart from me I never knew you’ - no remembering of any relationship whatsoever.
5. Remember your creator in the days of your youth. Acknowledge God and give Him rightful place even from a young age. Ecc 12:1
6. God remembers his covenant and the evidence of that is a rainbow in the clouds after rain - God is faithful and honours his word, his covenant promise. Genesis 9:15, 16
7. God told Moses that He was to be remembered throughout all generations. To honour God means not ignoring Him or forgetting Him or disregarding Him from the place he should have in our lives and the lives of the generations to follow. We are to be an example and teach the next generations what it means to honour God. Exodus 3:15
8. Remember it is God who gives you the strength to work and make money - God should get the glory and honour for what he has given us Deuteronomy 8:18
9. The people did not remember the Lord and all He had done for them. Judges 8:34 We should learn from people of the past and how easy it is to fail to put God in His rightful place in our lives and to keep Him and His will as the No. 1 priority. It takes intentional thought and decision.
10. Hannah asked God to remember her and give her a son - to grant her relief from the shame of childlessness and grant her the honour of having a child. 1 Samuel 1:11
11, David asked that God remember him and not turn His face away - in other words he is asking that God would not reject him and thus give him shame instead of honour. 2 Chron 6:42
12. The Psalmist wants God’s name to be remembered…to be praised - thus he wants God name to be exalted and honoured. Psalm 49:17 There is a lot of ‘remembering’ going on in the Psalms, which prompts us to be reminded that songs we sing are a place to be sure to ‘remember’ the Lord and give Him the rightful place of honour in our lives. They are also filled with requests for God to not forget His children. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit had not yet been given as He was on the Day of Pentecost and so there was not the same confidence that we can have today if we are born again that God will not forget us, as we are sealed with the Holy Spirit for the Day of Redemption (Ephesians 4:30).
13. A day is coming when the things that shamed us on this earth will be remembered no more - they will be gone and have no value or importance or valid voice, so we don’t have to fear. Eternal honour is coming in place of earthly shame. Isaiah 54:4
14. Ezekiel 16:43, 60, 61 - because God’s people did not remember their shame as they should have, God would deal with them with punishment. That might not immediately make sense and it might sound like we should honour our shame! However, I would suggest it is saying we need to give God the honour we should by putting correct value assessment on our sin - the value assessment that God says sin is disgraceful and unacceptable. They did not honour the seriousness of sin before a Holy God. They did not fear God as they should have.
15. Mark 14: 72 When the rooster crowed, Peter remembered what Jesus had said and went and wept bitterly. He remembered - he gave thought to what Jesus had said and thus what his actions meant in the light of what Jesus had said. The fact that he wept bitterly shows that he was grieved that as he gave value and honour to Jesus and Jesus’ words he realised how far short he came, how much of a failure he was. He only would have wept bitterly if he thought Jesus was worthy of his love and honour and he had failed to give that love and honour.
16. We are to remember the words of Jesus, whether its His words telling us "it is better to give than receive" or anything else he said. To remember is to value and honour his words enough to seek to recall them and then to act in accordance with them. Acts 20:35
17. We are to remember the poor - Galatians 2:10 - to remember the poor is not to merely have a passing thought about them, but to prioritise them in our time and money, to give them honour, and not just be self-honour seeking.
18. We are to remember what we were as rejected and separated from God. We do this, not to honour what we were, but to give consideration and thought to what we have been saved from, and thus ‘remember’ and honour God as the giver of the great a gift we have been given in our salvation. To forget all that is to disregard what it cost Christ to gain our free salvation. Ephesians 2:11,12
19. To remember tears, is to value the suffering of others, to show you care about others and the pain and difficulties of others. It is to weep with those who weep. It shows thought outside of ourselves by giving honour to the pain in the lives of others. 2 Timothy 1:4
20. Interestingly the final mention of this word ‘remember' is in Revelation 18:5 and is a somber warning that while God will not remember our sins anymore if they have been paid for and forgiven in Christ, he will remember our sins if they are not forgiven. They will not be overlooked or ignored. They will be given the significance they deserve, the significance of all that God rejects and can never tolerate.
We are left with a final challenge and reminder, that while we are so blessed in Christ with welcome into heaven where Christ will ‘remember’ us as His own and our sins will be remembered no more and no longer as counted significant against us...there are however, millions for whom God will not and cannot forget their sin when it comes to judgement day. Let us go and share the gospel good news with them so that their position in Christ will be known and ‘remembered’ for eternal life with God forever, rather than their sins being ‘remembered’ for eternal shame and separation from God.
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