Remember

Memorial Day -

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday which occurs every year on the final Monday of May. Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died while in the military service. It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season.

Memorial Day - a day of remembering …

Originally called Decoration Day

Remembering those lost in some of our wars

The Revolutionary War - 25,000

The Civil War - 625,000

World War I = 116,516

World War II - 405,399

The Korean War = 36,516

The Vietnam War - 58,209

The War Against Terror > 6,600

The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard (almost 700 mostly guarding the coast of the USA in WWII)

Prayer for those who are now in harm’s way …

Remember! It’s an important word in the Word.

How important is remembering? > 231 verses with “remember” in the NIV

OT kings were to write in their own handwriting the Law of the Lord and read it every day

Deuteronomy 17:18b-19 says:

The King “is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests.

“It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees.”

Have you every had someone say to you, “you’d better write this down?” That means it’s something important!

Remember! What does that mean to us on a day-by-day basis?

We need to remember our great salvation!

- Some claim that if we do not know the date and time of our

salvation we are not truly saved.

- If we do know the date and time that is great

- If we don’t that’s ok, too.

Examples: Karenlee (saved in a moment in time) - Cindy Lea (understanding and placing her trust in Jesus over a long period of time)

We need to remember Who saved us and how He saved us.

The thing we really need to remember is the great mercy shown to us by God.

The great transformation in our lives.

1 Peter 8:9

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

Remember what we were without Him and what He has made us into.

We need to remember our past sins and we don’t need to remember our past sins.

We need to remember our past sins because:

The memory reminds of our great deliverance

The memory serves as a warning of what we could return to

We don’t need to remember the guilt of our past sins because

The devil will use the guilt to bring unfounded condemnation

(ill. "I can't forgive myself")

However …

We do need to remember the guilt of our past sins because

Without remembering the guilt we may be enticed to sin again

That’s about us, what about the sins of others … should we remember them?

Until we reach the point where our minds grow senile we have no choice but to remember the sins of others, it is what we do with those memories that matters.

We can embrace or forgive the memories of the sins of others whether they are committed directly against us or not.

Do you ever walk into a room and wonder why you went there? Of course!

Do you ever see a person who hurt you but you can’t remember what they did? NO!

That unforgettable memory coupled with unforgiveness steals your life from you.

Here’s how it works:

- Someone hurts you - it may not even be a big thing

- Whenever you see them you remember and the hurt comes

back and you relive the event

- Whenever someone mentions them the hurt comes back and

you relive the event (usually telling the story to the person)

- The unforgiven offense starts popping into your mind at

random times and you relive the event

- When you wake up at night the unforgiven offense pops into

your mind and you relive the event

- Every time you relive the event it makes you angry or hurt all

over again depend on your personality type and you’re all

stirred up inside

- This spills over into other events in your life and causes