Galatians 6:1-5

The Lord doesn’t want the members of His body to live in isolation; believers are intended to function as a loving family who actively care for each other. One of our responsibilities as part of God’s household is to come alongside a brother or sister who has stumbled. Paul specifies that those “who are spiritual” are to restore the fallen ones to fellowship with the Father and the family. “Spiritual” doesn’t mean some elite group of pious leaders; it refers to any Christians who are living under the Spirit’s control. A key element in this process is the attitude of the one who seeks to restore a fellow Christian.

A Spirit of Gentleness: This isn’t a time for harshness, anger, judgment, or condemnation. Our goal is not to heap pain and guilt upon a hurting brother or sister but to show mercy and forgiveness (2 Cor. 2:5-8).

A Spirit of Humility: Those who have a superior attitude look down on a fallen brother and think, I would never make those mistakes. But the humble know their own vulnerability. Instead of judging others, they examine their own lives in order to recognize and deal with areas of weakness.

A Spirit of Love: When we love others, we’ll willingly sharing their burden. This requires an unselfish investment of our time, energy, and prayer on their behalf.

How do you react when a fellow Christian has stumbled? One of the ugliest human traits is our tendency to feel better about ourselves when another person misses the mark. Instead of sharing the latest gossip about a fallen brother or sister, let your heart break, and come alongside to love and help.

For most of us, the act of remembering or revisiting a memory takes us back into the distant past. We remember people, events, cherished locales and details from days long gone. Of course, not all memories are pleasant, and traveling toward the distant past can also resemble something more like a nightmare than a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Nevertheless, even if we have but a few, all of us have cherished memories or times we periodically revisit in daydreams and remembrances.

Nostalgia is one such way of revisiting these times. It can be defined as that bittersweet yearning for things in the past. The hunger it creates in us to return to another time and place lures us away from living in the realities of the present. Nostalgia wears a shade of rose-colored glasses as it envisions days that were always sweeter, richer, and better than the present day. In general, as Frederick Buechner has said, nostalgia takes us “on an excursion from the living present back into the dead past…” or else it summons “the dead past back into the living present.”(1) In either case, nostalgic remembering removes us from the present and tempts us to dwell in the unlivable past. Without finding ways to remember forward—to bring the past as the good, the bad, and the ugly into the present in a way that informs who we are and how we will live here and now—all we are left with is nostalgia.

It is far from a sense of nostalgia that drives the writer of Psalm 78. Instead, the psalmist recalls the history of Israel as a means of remembering forward, bringing the full reality of the past into a place of honest remembrance not just for the present generation, but for the sake of generations to come. The psalmist exhorts the people to listen and incline their ears to the stories of their collective history; the Exodus, the wilderness wanderings, and the entry into the land of promise in which they currently dwell. “We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength and his wondrous works that he has done….That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep the commandments” (Psalm 78:4-7).

Despite bearing witness to the work of God among them, the people of Israel forgot these crucial aspects of their historical narrative. In so doing, they did not keep the covenant and began to live in ways that went contrary to all that defined them. They forgot the deeds and miraculous signs which bore witness to God’s presence. Moreover, they lost faith and did not trust in God’s salvation. The psalmist acknowledges that they all “grieved God in the desert.” There are no rose-colored remembrances here, no bittersweet yearnings to which they can return. Rather, the darker parts of their story are remembered even as praise is offered up for God’s long-suffering and loving-kindness. The psalmist urges the people to think about this God in the midst of their present circumstances. What had God done among them in the past in spite of their own failings? And how might they now live in light of that past?

Perhaps it is this collective remembering Jesus has in mind when he instructs those closest to him to remember. Jesus instructs his followers during that last supper together saying “this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me” he is not calling them to bittersweet yearnings, or simply to remember events lived long ago (Luke 22:19). Rather, he calls them to remember in a way that would shape their living in the present, and for the future. Surely these intimate friends of Jesus could not have understood fully all that was implied in his call to remember him. Yet, they became his witnesses “in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus, was not just a fact they rehearsed, but a lived reality that gave contour and context for their generation, and for generations to come.

In the face of an uncertain future, or perhaps a painful present, we might be tempted to dwell in a nostalgic remembering. We might wish for the comfort of selective memories. Yet, for those who want to follow Jesus we have the opportunity to ask ourselves how we are remembering forward? What stories do our lives tell? How do our lives enact the great narrative of salvation in our present day? As we think about the kind of remembrance that enlivens our present and gives hope for the future, we can join in the song of praise with the psalmist of old: Yes, we your people and the sheep of your pasture give thanks to you forever; to all generations we will tell of your praise!(2)

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Beyond Words: Daily Readings on the ABC’s of Faith (Harper: San Francisco, 2004), 252.
(2) Psalm 79:13.

Morning   “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.”   Psalm 138:8

Most manifestly the confidence which the Psalmist here expressed was a divine

confidence. He did not say, “I have grace enough to perfect that which

concerneth me–my faith is so steady that it will not stagger–my love is so

warm that it will never grow cold–my resolution is so firm that nothing can

move it”; no, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If we indulge in any

confidence which is not grounded on the Rock of Ages, our confidence is worse

than a dream, it will fall upon us, and cover us with its ruins, to our sorrow

and confusion. All that Nature spins time will unravel, to the eternal confusion

of all who are clothed therein. The Psalmist was wise, he rested upon nothing

short  of the Lord’s work. It is the Lord who has begun the good work within us; it is

he who has carried it on; and if he does not finish it, it never will be

complete. If there be one stitch in the celestial garment of our righteousness

which we are to insert ourselves, then we are lost; but this is our confidence,

the Lord who began will perfect. He has done it all, must do it all, and will do

it all. Our confidence must not be in what we have done, nor in what we have

resolved to do, but entirely in what the Lord will do. Unbelief insinuates–“You

will never be able to stand. Look at the evil of your heart, you can never

conquer sin; remember the sinful pleasures and temptations of the world

that beset you, you will be certainly allured by them and led astray.” Ah! yes,

we should indeed perish if left to our own strength. If we had alone to navigate

our frail vessels over so rough a sea, we might well give up the voyage in

despair; but, thanks be to God, he will perfect that which concerneth us, and

bring us to the desired haven. We can never be too confident when we confide in

him alone, and never too much concerned to have such a trust.

 

Evening   “Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money.” Isaiah 43:24

Worshippers at the temple were wont to bring presents of sweet perfumes to be

burned upon the altar of God: but Israel, in the time of her backsliding, became

ungenerous, and made but few votive offerings to her Lord: this was an evidence

of coldness of heart towards God and his house. Reader, does this never occur

with you? Might not the complaint of the text be occasionally, if not

frequently, brought against you? Those who are poor in pocket, if rich in faith,

will be accepted none the less because their gifts are small; but, poor reader,

do you give in fair proportion to the Lord, or is the widow’s mite kept back

from the sacred treasury? The rich believer should be thankful for the

talent entrusted to him, but should not forget his large responsibility, for

where much is given much will be required; but, rich reader, are you mindful of

your obligations, and rendering to the Lord according to the benefit received?

Jesus gave his blood for us, what shall we give to him? We are his, and all that

we have, for he has purchased us unto himself–can we act as if we were our own?

O for more consecration! and to this end, O for more love! Blessed Jesus, how

good it is of thee to accept our sweet cane bought with money! nothing is too

costly as a tribute to thine unrivalled love, and yet thou dost receive with

favour the smallest sincere token of affection! Thou dost receive

our poor forget-me-nots and love-tokens as though they were intrinsically

precious, though indeed they are but as the bunch of wild flowers which the

child brings to its mother. Never may we grow niggardly towards thee, and from

this hour never may we hear thee complain of us again for withholding the gifts

of our love. We will give thee the first fruits of our increase, and pay thee

tithes of all, and then we will confess “of thine own have we given thee.”

 

Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved.  Song of Songs 1:16

From every angle our Well-beloved is most fair. Our various experiences are meant by our heavenly Father to provide new vantage points from which we may view the loveliness of Jesus. How friendly are our trials when they allow us a clearer view of Jesus than ordinary life could afford us! We have seen Him from the mountain peaks, and He has shone upon us as the sun in His strength; but we have seen Him also from the lions’ dens, and even there He has lost none of His loveliness. In the experience of suffering and pain, from the borders of the grave, we have turned our eyes to our soul’s spouse, and He has never been other than “beautiful.”

Many of His saints looked upon Him from the gloom of dungeons and from the martyr’s flames; yet they never uttered an ill word of Him, but died extolling His surpassing charms. To keep our gaze on the Lord Jesus is noble and pleasant employment. Is it not unspeakably delightful to view the Savior in all His works and to perceive Him matchless in each? To shift the kaleidoscope, as it were, and to find fresh combinations of matchless grace? In the manger and in eternity, on the cross and on His throne, in the garden and in His kingdom, among thieves or in the midst of cherubim, He is everywhere glorious in His beauty.

Examine carefully every little act of His life and every trait of His character, and He is as lovely in the minute as in the majestic. Judge Him as you will, you cannot censure; weigh Him as you please, and He will not be found wanting. Eternity shall not discover the shadow of a spot in our Beloved, but rather as ages revolve, His hidden glories will shine with even more inconceivable splendor, and His unutterable loveliness will continually ravish all celestial minds.

The family reading plan for May 22, 2012

Isaiah 23 | 1 John 1