God Remembers

GOD REMEMBERS

It can be of great encouragement to be aware that ‘God Remembers’. We have a God who ‘cares about our concerns’, who ‘contemplates our conversations’ and who ‘chronicles our commitments’. Let us look into the Word of God, take on board what it says, and as a result be encouraged, challenged, and built up in the faith!

In our daily lives we meet with very different situations, situations that are often beyond our control; and as a result we can allow our natural self to take over our feelings and thoughts, which result in us being very concerned. How good to know that our wonderful Heavenly Father is also concerned for us.

I. GOD REMEMBERS OUR CONCERNS

The Encarta Dictionary gives the meaning of the word ‘concern’ as;

“a feeling of worry, compassion, sympathy, or regard for somebody or something”.

I am sure that we all have feelings of concern from time to time! I guess that Noah must have felt a little concerned when in the ark for such a long time. How good to know that God remembers!

Genesis 8:1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede.

What a relief for Noah and his family - God remembered Noah.

The Children of Israel must have felt concern regarding their becoming slaves in Egypt. Times had changed and become very hard for them; they had been welcomed guests with one of their own people second only to Pharaoh, but now they were beaten and in bondage - but the Lord was listening!

Exodus 3:9 The cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.

What a relief for the Israelites as they were delivered from their slavery and sent on the way to the Promised Land – God remembered the Israelites!

Then we have David. Oh the pressures that he went through, right from the beginning of his becoming king; even his own family turning against him. He actually expresses his feeling in a wonderful way.

Psalm 56:8 Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll - are they not in your record? [NIV]

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. [NLT]

Note that the NLT speaks of the tears being collected in a bottle! The main idea is that God has a record, and He treasures the record!

I felt it would be good re to see what Calvin has to say about this;

Calvin

The words amount to a request that God would not suffer his tears to fall to the ground, but keep them with care as a precious deposit. The prayers of David, proceeded upon faith in the providence of God, who watches our every step, and by whom (to use an expression of Christ)

"the very hairs of our head are numbered," (Mt 10:30).

Unless persuaded in our mind that God takes special notice of each affliction which we endure, it is impossible we can ever attain such confidence as to pray that God would put our tears into his bottle, with a view to regarding them, and being induced by them to interpose in our behalf. He immediately adds, that he had obtained what he asked. He animates his hope by the consideration that all his tears were written in the book of God, and would therefore be certainly remembered. And we may surely believe that if God bestows such honour upon the tears of his saints, he must number every drop of their blood which is shed. Tyrants may burn their flesh and their bones, but the blood remains to cry aloud for vengeance; and intervening ages can never erase what has been written in the register of God’s remembrance.

There are times when, if we are real before God – no pretence – that the Lord will do something special for us. King Hezekiah became very ill, in fact he was dying, and he prayed and wept before God, who gave the Prophet Isaiah a specific message for Hezekiah;

II Kings 20: 5 “Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people. Tell him, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your ancestor David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you, and three days from now you will get out of bed and go to the Temple of the LORD.

Can you imagine that? All because God remembered Hezekiah! He saw his tears!

Yes GOD REMEMBERS OUR CONCERNS. I believe we can take courage from the examples recorded in the Word of God.