WEEK TWO - DAY ONE - FORGETFULNESS

Oh my!  I'm not sure I want to spend today on this subject!  The older I get, the more it is a factor in my daily life...forgetting where I laid my iPhone, where did I just put my glasses...oh is that appointment today?!?  Anybody else over 65 relate?  Sometimes I think we were always forgetful, we just become more conscious of it as we get older because it becomes a concern to us.   At least that's what I'm telling myself and I give you permission to claim that as well!  I love the quote today's study highlights on this subject, "God knows our tendency to forget and calls us to intentionally set patters in our lives to help us remember Him."  My forgetfulness is not unique to me and yours is not to you.  Israel was a very forgetful nation - and they forgot stuff that I'm SURE I would remember!  Things like the parting of the Red Sea...I mean that's pretty memorable!  But over the years, as the story passed from generation to generation, the impact of that parting and the magnitude of God's displayed power had faded and the memory was lost in the dry, Judean winds.  As a result of their forgetfulness, they became open to the ideas of the nations around them, ideas that were contrary to the commandments given to them by God to worship ONLY Him, only the One who had rescued them and brought them out of captivity and had entered into a covenant relationship with them.  When we accepted Christ as our Savior and put the name Christian onto our lives, we too entered into a covenant with God - to put Him first, to relegate all other loves and interests in this world to places beneath Him.  Do we also forget our covenantal promise?

What are the things that lure us away from placing God first?  Striving to have more stuff?  Wanting to be in a certain circle of friends?  Wanting our children to have everything that every other kid has?  Wanting to take that perfect trip that everyone is talking about?  Spending too much time watching the current top binge-worthy series?  Just wanting what we want all the time - no matter what it happens to be in the current moment?  We can make stuff, popularity, our families, pleasure, entertainment idols...but most of the time it simply comes down to US - we are our most prevalent idol.  Self!  The most tempting idol of all, and Satan knows it.  Why would a parent offer up a child on an altar to an idol?  Only if they had put themselves on a higher plane than their child and they thought such a sacrifice could be to their advantage.  Why would any healthy mother abort a healthy baby?  Because she values visions of her future life more than that of her child and sees what is actually a blessing from God as a disadvantage to herSELF.  When you really stop and think about it, every idol we set up, we do so because it feeds our own selfish interests.  And our idols of self-interest give us all kinds of reasons and rationalizations not to do what God asks of us.

I think we're back to surrender and submission - the crux of the Christian faith.   Surrender of self, submission of our agendas, and tearing down of all the idols that we allow to creep in and take our eyes off of our God and Father.  And that brings us back to our subject of today - the forgetfulness of our covenant relationship and the reasons to have active acts of remembrance.  Daily time in the Word, daily prayer, regular church attendance, taking of communion and steady conversation with our Father who loves us so much.  These are all acts of remembrance that combat our human (and Satan influenced) tendencies towards forgetfulness.  Be deliberate and be diligent in remembering!

Talking about remembering...how about this week's verses to memorize:

"Idols are worthless; they are ridiculous lies!  On the day of reckoning they will all be destroyed.  But the God of Israel is no idol!  He is the Creator of everything that exists, including Israel, His own special possession.  The LORD of Heaven's Armies is His name!"  Jeremiah 10:15-16

That may seem long, but if you take it phrase by phrase it really flows together easily.  Start out by saying that idols are worthless and ridiculous!  We create them to feed ourselves.  But they will all come to an end...because we serve a God who is not an idol but the Creator of everything, even Israel and especially Israel.  He is the Lord of Heaven's Armies...powerful and over all!  Meditate on that, and then say it once more:

"Idols are worthless, they are all ridiculous lies!  On the day of reckoning they will all be destroyed, But the God of Israel is no idol!  He is the Creator of everything that exists, including Israel, His own special possession.  The LORD of Heaven's Armies is His name!  

Why do we look to anything else to satisfy our needs when we have the Creator of us, the Creator of the universe, telling us that He cares for us, that He loves us so much that He would do anything, including the sacrifice of His Only Son, to bring us back to Him, to allow us to be with Him for eternity.  Everything, anything, else is worthless and ridiculous...Holy Spirit help us to keep our eyes on our Father, and on our Savior, Jesus Christ!  You are with us.