Royalty 3
How is your memory? What events, people, circumstances, pain or joy do you most easily remember about both your recent and distant past? I have always been amazed at the way the Father created us physiologically and soul-logically. I’ve had many conversations with folks and we seem to be more easily able to remember the good things with pleasurable sensation vs. the painful things with actual pain.
My wife and I have experienced the loss of a son. That was almost 15 years ago. The pain of that experience is indelibly inked on our hearts and our memories. But we don’t experience the same depth of searing hurt as we did when it happened. We have more of a groan; not of unjustness or anger—but of a wistfulness to have gotten to raise him and know him. Overlapping this groan is a knowing that God loves us and all that we’ve experienced is useful to His destiny for us; so we choose to remember that as well.
Being a Royal person requires some memory work, but not the kind you may think. Malachi 3:16 records an interesting sentence for all eternity:
“Then those who feared the Lord talked often one to another; and the Lord listened and heard it, and a book of rememberance was written before Him of those who reverenced and worshipfully feared the Lord and who thought on His name.”
Here is the question I ponder about what is written in God’s Book of Rememberance;
What does He remember about me?
Let me give you a context for this consideration; how do you talk about your children to others? Although my 17 year old son has experienced 3 speeding tickets and one accident in his first year of having a driver’s license, I tell that story in the middle of many more words of love, appreciation and pride. I speak of his job and how he got it and how he serves well. I speak of his character and how he is managing his relationships with others wisely and I talk about his physique—he is a very strong and athletic young man. I speak of his wit and humor and how much we enjoy him. You can lose that part about the driving silliness in all of that can’t you?
Or can you?
So—does God my Royal Father—who calls me a Royal Priest/Son to Him—remember my sinfulness? Is it written in His Book of Rememberance of Phil? Does he have pictures of me along with captions below like a Creative Memory wild man with little anecdotes about this event or that sin? Does He use His Royal memory to remember my screw-ups and failures?
Nope.
I weep when I write this—HE DOES NOT remember that. His mercy triumphs over judgment. I have earned and deserved judgment, as do you. I have EARNED spite, judgment and His anger. I should have no standing before Him; I should have absolutely NO place of pleasure in His memory.
But I do.
“He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our offenses. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His faithful love towards those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Ps. 103:10-12
“This is the brand-new covenant that I will make with Israel when the time comes. I will put my law within them—write it on their hearts!—and be their God. And they will be my people. They will no longer go around setting up schools to teach each other about God. They’ll know me firsthand, the dull and the bright, the smart and the slow. I’ll wipe the slate clean for each of them. I’ll forget they ever sinned!” Jere. 31:34
God’s memory of me is full of moments of my love for Him and my passion for Him. Lots and lots of pictures of me bowing, worshipping, prostrate before Him in adoration and praise. Lots of pictures of me dancing around campfires and hiking through woods screaming his name ‘til my throat grew raw and raspy. Lots and lots of pictures of my face turned upward with tears of rapturous joy and reckless-abandon love beaming. Tons of pictures of me sitting around with groups of hairy-chested men—cigar smoke flowing—as we review His love letter to us and celebrate His love. His Book of Rememberance for Phil Floyd doesn’t include the judgment I deserve—because I don’t deserve it anymore. He paid for that—so why would I keep offering up the bill for that service to Him? It is “PAID IN FULL.”
Becoming a person of Royal standing requires that WE choose to start remembering and thinking on that which our King remembers and thinks on. We change our thinking to align with His thinking. That is what builds our faith. When we read, study, listen to, memorize and meditate on His word—it builds our faith. When we listen to Him tell us who we are through the Spirit—it builds our faith. When we hear His heart for the lost and poor, the prisoner and the widow—our faith gets built up. Because we start thinking like He thinks about people.
Introspection is a killer. Around our home we have said for years that when you are home ill and feeling poorly is EXACTLY the wrong time to go introspective and start considering your value as a person, your weight, your place in God’s memory or any other consideration of substance. We always lose when we evaluate our lives when we are sick. So we just refuse to do it. Instead I ask the Holy Spirit to tell me, through His word, through my brothers and sisters and through His intimate voice within what needs attention in my life. He knows best doesn’t He?
In the same way—we, as Royal Priests/Sons/Daughters of the Great King need to align our Book of Rememberance with His and change our thinking so that we ponder on the things which please Him most.
Pressing in,
Phil
