Westserve

Remembering and Passing On

Been reading through Joshua and now on into Judges in my daily time in the Bible.
There are some very sobering and poingant issues raised in these two books, which never fail to impact on me.

Two related thoughts from Joshua 24 and the opening chapters of Judges:
Remembering
Joshua 24:14ff Joshua is bringing the people to heel and reminding them that God will not put up with being second best in his people’s lives. “choose this day whome you will serve…”. And despite the people’s protests in v16ff, they do forget God and all he has done to make them His, and they do go off and follow the false gods of the Amorites and the others.
But remembering what God has done to win their salvation is still a very important thing, and perhaps if they had kept on remembering that, they wouldn’t have made so many terrible errors.
Which brings me to the point to ponder: Do we remember what God has done to bring us to Him often enough? It certainly cost Him! And I think when we fail to remember in an explicit way, it probably costs us too.  Cost us in the sense that we loose the perspective on life that only an awareness of God’s great and expensive love for us brings.
In Sydney Anglican terms, our ‘official’ Prayer Book – when used properly – does a good job of reminding us of God’s great and costly love for us, and that is something we frequently loose with our more contemporary liturgy (but that just means we need to do better with our contemporary liturgy!).
It’s a very good and loving thing to regularly remind each other to remember all that God has done and what it has cost him to bring us into relationship with him.

Passing on
A couple of chapters further on in Judges 2 we have the record of Israel’s second crack at conquoring Canaan. In 2:6-10 we are reading about the time before Joshua’s death and there is one big difference between the two generations is that “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, or the work that he had done for Israel”  (v10).
How did this happen?
Because someone didn’t pass on the good news about God and his great work done for them.
That’s a sobering thought.
If, dear reader, you are a Christian, are someone who knows knows and values what God has done for you in Christ, it is yours and my responsibility to pass that wonderful knowledge on.
Not to talk about passing it on. Not to plan all kind of events to help pass it on, but to actually do it.
My guess is that you don’t have to think too much to bring to mind someone you know who needs to know what God has done for them.
This is our main task as the people of God.
Pray and ask God for the opportunity and words to say.