You were terrified. So was your mate to be. But in front of all those witnesses you exchanged your vows and your rings, and even your affection. Remember? You had thought for days, weeks, months, about the plans and just what kind of person this would turn out to be, and the progress of your career and the number of children and the house you would some day buy. You thought regularly about all the ways your combined life would give glory to God and His Kingdom. Remember?
And what does your remembering do for you? There are tears of gratitude. Tears of regret. Memories. New resolve. New vision. Remembering is powerful. It leads to action.
I remember the night oh so many years back when I thought I'd try out my neighbor's advice. "Try God" , she said. She knew my dad was an alcoholic and was missing again. She knew my mom had emotional issues that were destroying her and that she was in the hospital. She knew that the family that had moved into my house was abusive... She saw my sad little face often, and simply said, "Try God."
I remember that night on the way home from school when I "tried" Him. I knelt down in a wooded area and prayed as only a child can: "God, if you're really there, I want to hear from my dad tonight!" It had been a long time. Months, I guess, since Dad had called in. Oh how a little boy needs his daddy. But I had no reason to expect that call.
I remember what the clock was saying when I got to the fence around my house: 5:45. I remember that as I was walking in the door, the phone was ringing. I remember my sister handing me the phone and telling me, "Bobby, it's your dad calling." I remember thinking, "This is God! He's really there!"
I remember it so clearly, 50 plus years later. And remembering helps me to get my perspectives in order. Remembering clears out a lot of the junk in my life. Oh yes, it's powerful to remember.
Jesus told us to take some bread and some juice and remember. That's all. No elaborate ritual with specified speeches, uniforms, lights, smoke. Just bread, juice, memory. And into that scene comes Christ, crucified but alive from the dead. Power. Sheer power.
That's why He later told us to remember the prisoners. And with His dear friends in prison He adds this bit of instruction: "Remember them as though you were there with them." (Hebrews 13:3)
First call them to mind. Give them the place they deserve in your thinking apparatus. In your imagination. In your emotions. Let the Christ in His Body fill you full.
Then let one more thought in: You are there with them in prison. You are chained. You are doing hard labor in the fields or the mines. You are separated from your family. You are about to be beaten. You have just been beaten. But you will not deny Christ. You are hungry. You are oh so cold. You are roasting from the heat, and there is no ventilation or plumbing in your cell. Go on and on. "Remember" them. Put them in your brain deliberately.
Then rise up to act upon what you have experienced in those moments. For all of our life is nothing more than acting upon that which our mind has absorbed and processed. So process this: There is one body of Christ, and it is in great pain, and you are part of that body. Feel it. Now what do you do?
What? An entire article without mentioning the name of a certain country? Indeed. But I am confident that when God's people meditate on the suffering Body of Christ, He will Himself speak that country's name.
Thus it was spoken of the land of Narnia in the C.S. Lewis classic. The unthinkable, for a small child, and for bigger kids too, is an unbroken winter. Such is the plight for these many decades in North Korea. Surely there are bright moments. And...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
It is a sad and scary truth but one we must face. God does abandon people and nations. Samson was abandoned when he persisted in his disobedience. Israel was abandoned when she would not stop going after other gods. Jesus Himself was...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Shaped like a rocket, nose like a needle, largest structure in all of North Korea. It's the Ryugyong Hotel. Meant to be the largest hotel in the world, it met a few obstacles in its construction. The concrete was of poor quality. The elevators...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
In what state will the church have to be, in order for North Korea to be blessed when things there change? (Of course they will change!) The church will only need to be in the state of grace. For God's church is united by God to His purposes, not...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
"This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live..." The tyrant spoken of here in Acts 7 by the soon to be martyred Stephen is Pharaoh but he lives on in...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
1. Remember the coin Jesus found in a fish? Jesus could have blasted the government because of its excessive taxes. He chose instead to look to His Father for provision of His needs. When life is unfair, we trust God. I need to remind myself...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
If in the passages referring to the trials of Jesus one substitutes the title "God" in place of His name, the result is striking. John 18:12 ff becomes: "Then the detachment of troops and the captain and the officers of the Jews arrested God...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Brother Luke tells us (Luke 8:14) that a life can be choked with riches and pleasure just as easily as with the more serious cares of life. A North Korean or an American are equally vulnerable to the devil's tactics. Weeds, the kind Jesus...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Look at Heaven. Or if you cannot see that far today, look at the Earth that is promised in Scriptures in the age following this one. There, the Lord is King and is being honored and worshiped freely by all His subjects. The Father and the Son...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
