Remember to Believe

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Kay and I worry about memory loss. We walk into rooms and don’t remember why. We wake up in the small hours of the night and do remember what we forgot from the day before, only to forget again by breakfast time. Thankfully, we have it on reasonably good authority that our condition isn’t serious, only aggravating. In Kay’s training in health care, one instructor said that forgetting tasks isn’t necessarily an indicator of dementia. But if you walk into the kitchen, look at the toaster on the counter and wonder, “What does that thing do?”… you could be in trouble. So far, neither of us has put a phone into the toaster for charging – thank you, Jesus!

     We have a hypothesis, solidifying into a theory: the sheer number of things to be remembered has increased beyond what a person can reasonably expect to handle. If true, we might find relief in knowing that, expressed as a raw number, yes, we’re forgetting more; but expressed as a percentage, we’re forgetting less. That’s our theory, and we’re sticking to it.

     There is, however, one thing we have to remember – “we” meaning you and Kay and me, and all of us who have been redeemed by Jesus’ blood spilled on the cross. We can’t afford to forget that God raised his Son from the dead. It actually happened. Historical fact. Dead/buried… not dead/not buried. Not dead now, never dead again. Alive in a way like no other, a way we have yet to experience for ourselves.

     Whatever it takes, remember.

     Diversions abound, not all of them bad. The mental/spiritual task for the Christian is to steer all diversions to the curb, let them idle for a while, and dwell on what must be remembered. How often does a Christian need to do this? Ask Jesus himself; he’ll tell you true. I may be stretching the context, if not straining it, but 2Corinthians 10:5 could help here: …take every thought captive to obey Christ. When Scripture seems flat and lifeless; when I begin to think the Father doesn’t like me anymore, much less love me; when I’m having a dickens of a time honoring the image of God in fellow human beings, I know it’s time to remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

     Galatians 3:29 is a verse that occupies my mind often: If you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. This one verse, perhaps more than any other, reminds me that I am descended from every believer who has ever lived, and every believer yet to come will be descended from every believer now living. Bible history is our history. This is us. Reading through the Gospel of John lately, one event in our history has caused me to take note of the unbreakable link between remembering and believing. From the second chapter, here’s the setup: Jesus went into the temple courts – yes, The Temple in Jerusalem – and made a whip of cords, with which he drove out the moneychangers and sellers of livestock. His Father’s house was to be a house of prayer, not commerce. Everyone was impressed. Not everyone was pleased…

    So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken (John 2:18-22).

     His disciples remembered… and they believed… What was the cause of their remembering? When therefore he was raised from the dead…  

    The cause has not changed. Remembering the resurrection of Jesus is the key to believing all of what is true – however unlikely it may seem in this walk-around world. Where faith runs thin, remembering builds it up. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:11). For Kay and me, remembering the resurrection of Jesus was how the Father got us to realize he had saved us, had placed his Spirit in us.

     All day Wednesday, an old song was playing in my head: “We serve a risen Savior, he’s in the world today. I know that he is risen, whatever men may say.” Aside from what men may say about the resurrection, I can forget to remember all on my own. I was glad for the old song.

     Romans 8:34 says, Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

     Remember?

 

 Grace and Peace (and resurrection power right now),

 

John