Bible Study with the Cincotti’s – Remember Me – 02/23/2025
Today’s Bible Study, Authored by Arthur Cincotti.
Listen to our Bible Study Discussion at: Remember Me Audio Podcast
Or watch the Video Zoom Session of our Study on YouTube:
Remember Me
“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying. ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’” Lk. 22:19
Our capacity to remember is a gift from God; part of His design. In our thoughts we can span space and time. I personally have just a few clouded memories from when I was two years old and my family moved. Unlike the crisp memories of a few moments ago they are vague but very real. In his 1993 novel, Einstein’s Dreams, author Alan Lightman writes a fictional account of Einstein’s contemplations about time. I remember, in one vignette a man wakes every day without any recollection of the previous day; who he was; relationships, etc. What a disaster that would be. Yet, in creation, on day six, Adam appears as a newly created being without memory, except of his conception in the mind of God. Jonathan Leeman, in his book The Rule of Love, writes, “And God’s love for his unfallen world looks somewhat similar to the Father’s love for his unfallen Son. Like the Father’s love for the Son, God’s love for creation began with a word of affirmation. He was pleased with what he saw. He felt affection.”
God, who lives outside of time, invokes memory many times in Scripture. Gen. 8:1, “Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing…” Gen. 19:29, “And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham…” Gen. 30:22 “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.” Ex. 2:24, “So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham…” It’s not as if God was getting feeble but then says, “Oh yea!” The word in Hebrew, “zakar” means, think on, make to be remembered, to mark (so as to be recognized).
What of us and our capacity to remember? Under corruption there are positive and negative expressions to this ability. In the negative sphere; we may remember some scheme that we were once successful with and plan to do it again. We can remember past sexual exploits. Men are particularly vulnerable to the power of image, and we can replay images like a video tape in our minds. Women, I am told, succumb more to fantasies and romantic narratives which they can compose from memory in their minds. We also find it hard to forgive when we cling to memories of past hurts. I Cor. 13:5 instructs us: “(love) keeps no record of wrongs.” Yet how many times have we quaked under the weight of that ugly saying, “I can forgive but I just can’t forget”?
Memory can be a debilitating thing left unchecked by the boundaries of God’s word. We started out by saying that memory is part of God’s design.
In a positive sphere, God instructed Israel to remember the Passover. In Deut. 16:1-8, “…keep the Passover to the LORD your God…(for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life…” Also, Mal. 4:4, “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.” Also, Deut. 6:6-9, “And these words which I command you today shall be in you heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them…bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Perhaps the most beautiful of these injunctions to remember is where our opening verse comes from. We are called to remember our Lord Jesus Christ, and particularly His passion. “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you…Take this and divide it among yourselves…This is My body which is given for you…This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.” Lk. 22:19-21
The biggest trouble with memory is that we don’t; that is to say, we forget. Even with forgetting, there are positive and negative expressions. Paul said, “...forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Ph. 3:13-14. Even God gets amnesia in Jer. 31:34,
“For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” He demonstrates authority over His own memory.
We should exercise such authority over our memory!
II Cor. 10:5 – you knew it was coming – “…casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…” The KJV translates “arguments” as “imaginations.” Pr. James Finn use to call these, “image nations.” This, as we often say, is our battlefield.
Our capacity to remember can be a useful tool in our growth toward maturity. Remembering our old man – without dwelling on him in an unhealthy fashion – can demonstrate to us and the people around us how far we have come and the extent to which the Holy Spirit has changed us. Remembering God’s workings in our lives can galvanize our faith, compelling us forward to believe for present and future victories. Remembering Christ’s sacrifice of love on the cross humbles us and draws us away from any notions that we have anything to offer except a contrite spirit and a broken heart.
In the midst of all this remembering it should be evident by now that we have choices to make. The power of personal choice has also been give to us along with the power to remember. Sometimes it is very soothing to our souls to remember past victories when we were the center of attention and the hero of the story and we delude ourselves to believing, once again, that it’s all about us. It’s not. It’s all about Him!!!
Pr. Finn once did a study entitled, “Crucified Between Two Thieves” the fear of the future and the regret of the past. In it – if I remember correctly – he took the word “remember” and separated it into re member; to put back together. In the fall we became dismembered from our unity with the Godhead. He said that God placed an angel with a flaming sword at the entrance of the garden to cut our heads off and give us the mind of Christ. Well, that was Pr. Finn’s “imagination” but I like it. It reminds us that, yes, we have a part to play but ultimately God is changing us. Rom. 8:29 says, “for whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
God wants a family!
We should be very careful what we allow into our minds because once in it stays there. But we should be equally as careful as to what we entertain which is already in, and how we steward that playground. Thoughts are instantaneous. They can come on us quickly, instigated by many surrounding factors. Paul instructs us to be proactive in this regard, “Finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.” Ph. 4:8. Knowing that nothing is hidden from God, and, “…God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ…” Rm. 2:16
Let’s close with a doxology:
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”
Ps. 19:14
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