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We are almost finished with the first month of the New Year. Most people have slowly started to waiver in their New Year's resolutions already- one of them being daily bible reading. It has us begging the question, "Why do we even make this specific plan to begin with?" What is our purpose for reading through our bible daily? For so many it is what is expected of them. For others it might be a satisfying check mark on their daily to-do lists. Other are hoping for fulfillment perhaps. However, in these reasons "God becomes valuable to us to the extent to which our inward needs are met. It is our need that defines God's usefulness to us, what we want from him, and even who he is."1
I'd like to put forth another reason to keep in mind- To Remember.
God wants to be known by his people and to be made known to the nations. He even went so far as to became a tangible picture of an intangible God in the person of Jesus. So that we might know him. Ancient Israelites had key moments in their history (the exodus, the prophecies, the feasts, the passover, etc) as mile-markers to remind them of the hope to come. Today, we have all of those things in addition to in indwelling Holy Spirit, the fulfillment of those prophecies, the cross, the Lord's Supper, and Christ's promises for our future with Him forever. "God is utterly predictable, unlike the pagan gods, who were not. This is why Israel's history played so large a role in its faith. They looked back on what God had done in the past...what He had done before He would do again."2
"Do this in remembrance of me." (Luke 22:19) We cannot remember something we have never learned in the first place. If we don't understand or recognize the beautiful redemptive story laid out for His people across history we will flounder and question when we should be standing firm in faith and trusting. "When [this] redemptive narrative faded from their minds, then they ceased to be God-centered. They ceased to be God's people in their minds and in their ways, those who were living in the light of who God was and who he had called them to be."3
In our post-modern culture of relative truths, we christians have to know God in order to make him known. This is why we read His story- which in turn is our story. It is easy to forget God's objective truth in the cacophony of life's busyness. His word gets drowned out by an enemy and a world where the loudest voice wins the argument. We do not have a passive enemy. We must fight back with the sword of truth- His Word.
Jeremiah 2:32 "...for years on end my people have forgotten me."
Psalm 106:21 "They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt..."
Isaiah 17:10 "For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge."
Jeremiah 13:25 "This is your lot, the portion I have measured to you," declares the LORD, "because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood."
It is dangerous for us to forget the character of God, or worse- not even know Him in the first place. And so we take delight in learning about the God who wants to be in communion with His people. He is not a distant, impersonal force. Even in His splendor and glory He comes to us, He knocks on the door of our hearts. We read our bibles to know this faithful covenant keeper because He is worth knowing. He is worth our time to pursue. We read to remember- His faithfulness, His love, His warnings, His story.
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1-3 Notations: source book 'God in the Whirlwind' by David F. Wells
