SOMETHING WORTH REMEMBERING

Something Worth Remembering

              Perhaps one of the most difficult thing things for a Christian to remember is the grace of God. For it has been said that there is a Pharisee lurking in the dark recesses of everyone’s heart. By Pharisee we mean the tendency to think that we are made right with God through our own good works instead of Jesus Christ’s good works done on our behalf. The battle in every Christian’s heart is that of self-righteousness versus Christ’s imputed righteousness. The great freedom of conscience the Christian has is in knowing that God knows that you are a sinner – that’s why He sent the Saviour! It is in knowing that God has imputed your sin to His Son who dealt with it on the cross. Therefore to know that it was for your sin that Jesus paid the death penalty, and that it was because you couldn’t, that Jesus kept God’s Law perfectly on your behalf, is great freedom indeed! This is something worth remembering! For thus the Christian can now get on with life enjoying it to the full, for Christ, our shield, our exceedingly great reward, was pierced for our transgressions. His cross is the removal of the Damocles death-sword from above your head. The Christian need not worry if he has done enough to please God, because Christ, as his representative, already has.
              When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper at the very last Passover He didn’t say, ‘Do this in remembrance of your sin.’ He said, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’ Yet how can we not think of our sin at the Lord’s Table, for by His sacrificial death on the cross He is ‘The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.’ John 1:29. But why does the Christian keep on remembering his own sins when Scripture says of God, ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us’? Psalm 103:12. O to be more like God in Jesus Christ!

I have been a Scottish ex-pat for over forty years. Whenever I visit Scotland I look up old friends. Why does my face often redden when we reminisce about the good old days? Am I not forgiven? Have my scarlet sins not been washed as white as snow by the shed blood of Christ? Has not my heart been sprinkled from an evil conscience? Of course they have! Though the following words always tend to come to mind, ‘What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.’ Romans 6:21.
Yes, we all have things in our lives of which, when we recall them, we are ashamed! But we should keep in mind that the Lord’s Apostle goes on to speak of our Christian freedom, ‘But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Romans 6:22-23. A slave of sin or a slave of God? I know which I’d rather be! I will serve God out of love and gratitude for His gift of salvation to me.
Now, anytime I remember my sins I, at the same time, remember the Saviour of sinners. The self-righteous Pharisees said to Jesus, ‘“Why do You eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”’ Luke 5:30b-32. The self-righteous see no need for Jesus! But God knows our need for Jesus, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ John 3:16. Everlasting life means that your death will have no adverse affect on you! It is not the penalty for your sin. Therefore it is no longer to be dreaded. Its sting of punishment has been removed. This means that your death, whenever it comes, is a stage in the process of everlasting life. That’s why the Lord’s Apostle could say, ‘For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ Philippians 1:21.
Some things are worth remembering. Others are not. Therefore ‘Test all things, hold fast what is good.’ 1 Thessalonians 5:21. Hold fast the grace of God found in Jesus Christ and ‘Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us…’ Hebrews 12:1.