When God Remembers Series

Margaret complained to her friends that George, her husband, could never remember their wedding anniversary on March 7. But one year, they were on a cruise ship to Australia. At five minutes before midnight on March 6, George proudly looked at Margaret and said, “This year I remembered. Just five minutes.”

At that moment the captain's voice announced, “We have crossed the International Date Line. It's now March 8” (Margaret Gunn, Mason, Michigan, “Lite Fare,” Christian Reader, July/ August, 2000).

Ladies, it’s nice when someone remembers you, isn’t it?

Years ago, a man in a previous church where I pastored (Blaine Beckett) sent his wife some flowers from three different florists on their anniversary. When she got the first arrangement, she thought, “Oh, that’s nice,” but she was half expecting it, because her husband was a thoughtful person, and he usually remembered their anniversary.

Then the second arrangement arrived, and she was very much surprised. But when the third arrangement of flowers came, she nearly dropped dead! That’s when he came home from work and took her out to dinner. To say the least, he remembered his wife on their anniversary.

Do you know? God remembers you! God says to His people, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…” (Isaiah 49:15-16).

God will not forget His own! He cannot, because you are permanently engraved on Him. So, even if everyone else forgets…

GOD REMEMBERS YOU.

The Lord is mindful of you. He thinks of you all the time.

I wonder. If nice things happen when PEOPLE remember you, what happens when GOD remembers you? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 8, Genesis 8, where we see what happened when God remembered Noah.

Genesis 8:1-5 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen (ESV).

When God remembered Noah, the waters of judgment receded, God withdrew His hand of judgment, and the storm stopped. And that’s what happens when God remembers you.

The storm stops. The waters recede, and God withdraws His hand of judgment. The Bible says, “All [of us] have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And “the wages of sin is death.” But when God remembers you, He withdraws the death penalty for your sin. The waters of judgment recede, and you live!

On February 24, 2001, Erika, a one-year-old, little girl crawled out of her mother's bed, wandered out of the house and ended up lost in the frozen night of an Edmonton, Alberta winter.

By the time her mother, Leyla Nordby, found her, Erika was like a statue. Her legs were stiff, her body frozen, and all signs of life appeared to be gone.

Even so, Leyla took Erika to Edmonton's Stollery Children's Health Center, where she came back to life. To everyone’s amazement, there was no sign of brain damage, and doctors expected a full recovery. She would soon be able to hop and skip and play like other girls her age (Bob McKeown, “A Tiny Survivor,” from the television program Dateline, MSNBC, March 20, 2001).

In essence, that’s what happened to you when you came to faith in Christ. You were wandering around in the cold night of sin. Your heart was hard, and your spirit was as lifeless as that little girl in the snow. Then God remembered you. He came after you in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ. He sought you until He found you, and He gave you eternal life – i.e., those of you who have trusted Christ.

Please, if you haven’t done it already, let the Lord pick you up and bring you back to His house. Let Him bring warmth to your hard heart and healing to your lifeless spirit. Please, trust Him today with your life today. For when God remembers you, first of all, the storm stops.

Then second, you find rest. You find peace and security.

That’s what Noah sought for and found after the flood. Imagine being on a swaying, pitching, rocking ship for 150 days in the worst storm this world has ever known. What would you want more than anything else? You’d want rest. You’d want security. You’d want solid ground! Well, that’s exactly what God gave Noah after the flood. Verse 4 says, “The ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.” Oh, how good that must have felt, to be at rest at last! But there’s more!