How Quickly We Forget

(A note from me, the blogger who seems to have given up blogging: I'm still here.  But it seems that things are happening so rapidly the topic I thought about adding to this blog is overcome by another, then another, and so it goes, until I give up trying to keep up.  Every so often I dig back and bring to the front of this page a post I shared with you in the past.  Although it hasn't been a week since Easter Sunday, it fits.  Perhaps it's because some of us are quicker to forget in these perilous times.  So this is just a reminder that we should never forget, and that we should go to the foot of the cross every day of the year.  In the meantime, to my two followers, don't give up on me.  Maybe someday I'll start fresh.  I miss it, and I hope you do, too. ~ Karen   


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It has only been a week since millions, or perhaps billions, around the world honored the day that has been set aside to commemorate the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Easter, or Resurrection Day as some are becoming more apt to call it, is the most important day of the year for Christians and is celebrated in churches in every nation on this earth.

What are more commonly empty pews on any regular Sabbath day, on Easter the church is filled to the brim with men and women who attend to remember (or, at least we hope so) the sacrifice that was made nearly 2,000 years ago - "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

John 3:16 is perhaps the most recited verse of Scripture.  Even unbelievers and atheists are able to recite it.  We see it on road signs, on greeting cards, and on handwritten placards held up for all the world to see at televised ball games.    For a fleeting moment, the conscience is made aware and the heart is seared, until the eyes that saw it are lured away by worldly things.

And so it goes with the majority of those who attend a Easter service each year.  We could hope that the reason they attend church on that day is because they desire to honor Christ and thank the Father for giving us His Son as a propitiation for our sins.  We could hope the reason they were compelled to come by family and friends is because of a deep, unexplainable yearning to know more about Him.  Or better yet, we can hope the Holy Spirit is calling one more of God's children into the fold.  But, sadly, this isn't the case with most.  Easter is just another holiday filled with treats, frivolity, and family gatherings, and the Easter egg hunt has replaced the search for the One whose sacrifice defines the reason it's celebrated in the first place.

Because Monday always follows a Sunday, for most after Easter it's back to business as usual.  The world has its demands, even for Christians, I might add.  But the way the world sees it, life is dependent upon going back to work in order to keep the bacon coming in and fulfilling the needs and wants of an incessant, nagging houseful of imperious princes and princesses who believe the world (that means Dad and Mom and you and me) owes them everything they desire (that also means Dad and Mom who, all too often, are driven by material wants of their own).  All too often, the only remnants of the venerable day called Easter are overly wound children, a few brightly colored eggs that have been badly abused during the hunt, ear-less chocolate rabbits, bits of colored foil, plastic "grass" stuck to sticky candy and clinging in unlikely places, and stray jelly beans found under the couch cushion weeks, or years, later.

Along with the baskets and frills, Easter has been stored away until next year.  And for those who donned their Easter best and made their obligatory appearance for the first time that year, church attendance has also been stored away - at least until Christmas, when more treats, frivolity, and family gatherings will occur.

And sadly, far too many professing Christians fall into the same trap.  Church attendance resumes as just another social gathering.  Prayer becomes less constant.  Earthly trials and troubles and the mundane day-to-day routine draw our focus away from Jesus Christ and all that He has done to secure our salvation.  The main focus of the attention of many is on the next holiday waiting around the corner.

How quickly we forget.

I have been thinking about writing this blog post for the last couple of days.  But it wasn't until this morning, while reading my Spurgeon devotion, that I was finally convinced it needed to be done.  Spurgeon has a way of not allowing me to forget.  For the last month, every single morning and evening devotion was dedicated to remembrance: from the beginning to the end of that week-long account of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, His anguish in the garden of Gethsemane, His betrayal, His arrest, His trials before the rulers, to His agony on the cross and His ultimate rising from the grave and appearing to His disciples and others, and gloriously culminating on His ascension to Heaven and sitting down at the right hand of God the Father.

But how quickly we forget.

I have been reminded of late by things I have read and programs I have watched that we should preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to ourselves every single day.  "Do this in remembrance of Me." (Luke 22:14-20) can be rightly applied to this practice.  When one thinks about it, there is no Gospel without all that occurred that fateful hour 2,000 years ago.  Forget Him?  God forbid that we ever do.  But because of the world and all that it entails, we are apt to, from time to time, until once again we are drawn back to the foot of the cross and are reminded of the real meaning of Easter and the One Who secured our salvation.

The following is Charles H. Spurgeon's devotion for the morning of April 26th.  May it compel my readers to never forget and draw them into a deeper and more meaningful relationship with our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

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"This do in remembrance of Me." ~ (1Corinthians 11:24)

It seems then, that Christians may forget Christ!  There could be no need for this loving exhortation, if there were not a fearful supposition that our memories might prove treacherous.  Nor is this a bare supposition: it is, alas! too well-confirmed in our experience, not as a possibility, but as a lamentable fact.  It appears almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the blood of the dying Lamb, and loved with an everlasting love by the eternal Son of God, should forget that gracious Saviour; but, if startling to the ear, it is, alas! too apparent to the eye to allow us to deny the crime.

Forget Him who never forgot us!  Forget Him who poured His blood forth for our sins!  Forget Him who loved us even to the death!  Can it be possible?

Yes, it is not only possible, but conscience confesses that it is too sadly a fault with all of us, that we suffer Him to be as a wayfaring man, tarrying but for a night.  He whom we should make the abiding tenant of our memories is but a visitor therein.  The cross where one would think that memory would linger, and unmindfulness would be an unknown intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness.  Does not your conscience say that this is true?  Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus?

Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of Him upon whom your affection ought to be set.  Some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the cross.  It is the incessant turmoil of the world, the constant attraction of earthly things which takes away the soul from Christ.

While memory too well preserves a poisonous weed, it suffereth the rose of Sharon to whither.  Let us charge ourselves to bind a heavenly forget-me-not about our hearts for Jesus our Beloved, and, whatever else we let slip, let us hold fast to Him.