Spiritual Random Access Memory

Rev 3:3  Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

2Pe 1:9  For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Both of the verses above speak to the fact that sometimes we have a memory problem.  We have forgotten where we came from and what Christ had to do to save us from our sins.  The effect was that it led to failure in everyday living where Christ wasn’t the focus of their lives and they could not be fruitful in the Kingdom of God.  There are things that we must always be aware of in order to live a God-honoring life.

I kind of liken this to the RAM or random access memory in a computer.  A computer can have a massive storage drive full of information but it is only the information available at any given time that is beneficial.  Likewise, we may know a lot of truth but it is only as we can access that truth in the moment we need it that will keep us from falling into sin during times of testing. 

For example, it is important that when we get up in the morning that we are fully aware of our sinfulness, that the Devil is out there trying to tempt us to dishonor the Lord, that we must maintain an attitude of prayer and dependence on the Word, etc. and these things need to be in the forefront of our thinking.  What we cannot do is get up each day only thinking of our job and money or having fun or only thinking about our problems or what chores need to be done that day.  It isn’t that those things aren’t legitimate parts of our life but if we don’t keep the Word of God in our minds and if we don’t constantly remember that this life is one of spiritual warfare and we must get our marching orders from the Lord and not this world or our flesh, then we will misinterpret life and fail to deal with each new thing in a God-honoring way.

It is amazing how difficult it can be to always keep in our minds that God gave his life for us so that we might escape the wrath of God and instead live our lives in fellowship with him and find true fulfillment.  When we forget what the gospel did for us we become full of ourselves and put ourselves first instead of the Lord and others.  I heard the story of a newlywed man who after getting off work his first day back from his honeymoon drove back to his mother’s house.  He had forgotten that he had a new wife to go back to!  There are some things that we just can’t forget and expect there will be no ramifications.  Is Christ your bridegroom that forgettable?  Surely not, and it is deplorable when we forget him so easily during the day.

If I get up in the morning and I don’t remember that I am a husband and a pastor then I will soon find myself in all sorts of trouble and needless problems.  If I forget I am a man and walk to her closet to find something to wear I will fail to live up to the standards for which I was created.  Sometimes our spiritual memory is just as bad.  It seems James has this in mind in Jas 1:23  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. Jas 1:24  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  Our sin keeps accessing the faulty facts and leads us into sin.

In my mind, stored away in my subconscious, my hard drive as it were, are the facts that I am a human being with needs and desires that must be met to exist on earth and get along with people.  But there is also the reality the Bible has taught me; that I have been redeemed by the Lord to serve him and that there is great reward in making Christ the focus of my life and to love as he has loved me even if it means my physical life might suffer.  The problem we as sinners have to some degree is that it is the first set of facts that tend to be stored in our RAM and not the Gospel facts.  So instead of living each day soaked in Gospel thinking our default reality is putting our physical needs before anything else.

We are married to Christ but we tend to wake up as if we are bachelors and live our days as if we are the only person we love or be concerned for.  We are amazed that a newlywed can so easily forget he is married but we do the same thing throughout our lives when we give our love to things that dishonor the Lord.  We go out and pursue fleshly things instead of being in church where our Spouse is so we can get to know him better.  We give ourselves to temporal pleasures and securities when Christ is to be the love of our life.  We know better; the facts are stored away in our hard drives, but we must get into the habit of loading the gospel into the forefront of our minds so we can live in God’s reality and function properly.

For this to happen we must know much of the Bible to begin with and we must saturate ourselves with the Word and prayer so that it is readily available.  Too often we know so little of the Bible that we are unable to access it in the daily routines of life and we fall into destructive patterns with one another because of it.  Most problematic is that we have such a shallow relationship with Christ and are so full of ourselves that the love we should have for him has little effect on our words and actions.  When we get up in the morning fully aware that we are the children of God more than anything else we are starting to get the point. 

This is one reason why it is good to start each day with the Lord so we don’t forget who we are married to.  Let us keep the Gospel where it can be readily accessed and so it can permeate all that we do each day.