Word of Encouragement (4/29/2020)

We are continuing our reflection on thanksgiving. This morning, I’d like to talk about giving thanks for God’s faithfulness in the past.

One of the most important covenant activities is the act of remembering. God established religious feasts in Israel so that they could remember what the Lord had done for her. When the Israelites brought to the Lord the tithe of their first produce from the Promised Land, they were to remember how the Lord had delivered them from Egypt and brought them into the land by reciting their history. So, the Psalmist exhorts, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits…” (Ps. 103:1-2).

We cannot fully understand our present without remembering our past. Think of Israel, for example. Israel did not always live in Canaan. They were slaves in Egypt. They were delivered by the mighty hand of God. They were miraculously sustained by God during their 40-year wilderness wandering. God brought them into the land of Canaan by driving out the Canaanites before them. Remembering these facts was not just for the sake of knowing them as facts. They meant something, something very fundamental to their being and the meaning of their lives. God delivered them and set them apart as His people, a holy nation, to be a beacon of light in the fallen world, a bastion of God’s kingdom in this world. Even more importantly, it was to preserve the line of promise, through which the Savior of the world should come.

Remembering these things could not be just a cold, intellectual activity. To remember these things was to be reminded of God’s almighty power, to be assured of the special love and care this almighty God had for them, so that they could face whatever challenge they faced at the present with courage and hope. It is no wonder, then, that Israel’s waywardness and unfaithfulness and disloyalty to God are attributed to their forgetfulness (Deut. 32:18, Judg. 3:7, 1 Sam. 12:9, Ps. 78:11, etc.). How tragic this spiritual amnesia is! To forget God and His mighty works is to forget how blessed and privileged we are as His people.

So then, let us strive to remember God’s faithfulness to us in the past. When we do that, our confession will be, “Through many dangers, toils and snares / I have already come / T'was grace that brought me safe thus far / And grace will lead me home.” As we go through life, we will face new and different and even bigger challenges. But they don’t make any difference to God, who is almighty and sovereign. It is like comparing the brightness of light bulbs and candles in broad daylight.

But as we give thanks to God for His faithfulness in our past, let us remember how far into the past God’s faithfulness extends: “…he chose us in [his Son] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4). His faithfulness is from eternity to eternity, to all generations! Praise God!

I pray that the Lord would renew your faith and your strength as you remember Him and all His benefits!

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