Hello and welcome to God Today. I am Jono Hall, I am part of the leadership team here at The International House Of Prayer in Kansas City. I wanted to spend the next couple of minutes talking about the importance of remembrance.
Why is that important? Why should I be remembering? You know, I used to write a journal as a young guy for many years and the number of times I would flip back and read through, and I was like, “Wow! I have really forgotten how good God was in my life, number one. And secondly, how stupid I was.”
Now, I do that in my own life, but I see this in the Bible again, and again, and again. In fact, the children of Israel as they came out of Egypt and they wandered in the desert, we see this again and again in Deuteronomy. Moses, through the Lord, encourages the children of Israel to remember. Now, what are they encouraged to remember? They are encouraged to remember the goodness of the Lord and their own foolishness.
Why is that? Because the act of remembrance actually creates a heart of gratitude within us and then creates a heart of faith. We see it again and again throughout scripture. I want to encourage you, actually, do a little word study. Go to your various different Bible apps and type in the word “thankfulness.” What you will find is, throughout the Old Testament, where thankfulness is an evidence, we also see a great in-breaking of activity of the Lord. You know, let me give an example. Jehoshaphat, the enemies are coming against Judah, Jehoshaphat put these singers in front of the army. “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good and His love endures forever.” And what do we see? We see the Lord setting ambushes against the enemy. We see an in-breaking of the power of the Lord in the midst of the people of Israel.
So, it starts with remembrance. We remember how good the Lord is. As we remember how good the Lord is we are thankful. As we are thankful we see a heart of faith arise in our midst. Similarly, as we remember, we remember, “Oh my gosh! I was stupid. I need to not do that in the future.” We remember actually and I don’t need to be that stupid, but actually God was gracious in the midst. We again see a heart of thankfulness and faith is a result of that.
I want to encourage you today to actually remember. Remember the goodness of the Lord in your life. Remember the grace of the Lord in your life, and be thankful.