“THERE ARE THREE things I can’t remember,” the old professor said. “I can’t remember names, I can’t remember faces, and … hmm, let’s see…, well, I guess I can’t remember the other thing I can’t remember!”

We all face the problem of remembering. In a high-speed digital world of ours, where we are bombarded with so much information daily, remembering things that we see or hear have become increasingly difficult. The amount of work emails or messages we received daily are so overwhelming that the moment you do not attend to it, you would forget to attend to it completely. Every digital device and online account require us to key in passwords and pin numbers, and with the heavier security, you need to key in alphabets, numbers, and symbols. To remember all your passwords, you need to note down it down on a secured document locked by a password, but to your horror, you cannot remember the password to that document!

God understands that man has problem of remembering and nothing is more costly that spiritual forgetfulness or spiritual amnesia. Spiritual amnesia is when we forget the past faithfulness of God in our lives. We experience His visible provision or answered prayers in our daily lives, but we become quick to forget what God has done. The danger to spiritual amnesia is that we re-live fears and anxieties from time to time as if it is our first encounter. The solution to spiritual amnesia? It is to remember God by planting visible milestones in our lives.

In this passage, the Israelites had just witnessed God’s mighty hands in cutting off the water of the Jordan River, and they had personally walked across and came up from the dry ground of the riverbed. This second generation had just witnessed the power of the mighty Yahweh, just as their fathers had seen the parting of the red sea when they first left Egypt. They have had their personal encounters with God!

However, God knew regardless how great the miracle was, the generations that will come after will soon forget God’s faithfulness and power. Here God commanded Joshua to choose twelve people, one from each of their tribes to take a stone and setup a memorial at Gilgal. This was to become a sign for the future generations so that when their children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ they shall tell them that ‘the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord’ (verse 7) and ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground for the Lord their God has dried up the river’ (verse 22-23). God needed to help His people to remember His goodness and faithfulness through ways they could understand and practice.

In the same way, Jesus did the same with the twelve disciples in the upper room when they had their last supper before Jesus was crucified. Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you’” (Luke 22:19-20)

Jesus commands his disciples to remember Him. Remember specifically the loveof Christ through His death and suffering. Remember the power of Christ through His resurrection. As we take the Lord’s supper, such remembering reminds us that our God whom we trust can deliver us from our present difficulties as He has done in the past.

In the main sanctuary right below the pulpit is the Lord’s supper table with the words “Do this in remembrance of me” inscribed. As a young man, I could not understand the importance of remembering Christ through a symbolic ritual. But as one matures in the body and spirit, it had become such an important practice of faith to remember who Jesus is. The temptations of success and wealth, and storms of lives can force us to have spiritual amnesia. We can forget who our Lord and God truly is, but as we obey God’s commandment to obey Him, He brings us back into His presence.

Dear brothers and sisters, find our own ways to practice remembering Christ in our lives. Whether is it through our daily devotions to Him or scriptures through the wallpaper on our computer or mobile phones, find ways to keep Him visible in our lives. Remember Him!

Prayer: Dear God, thank you for putting milestones in our lives to remember who you are and what you have done. Lord, help us to practice faith in a way that can help us draw deeper into your presence today. In Jesus name we prayer, amen.