REMEMBER

THANK YOU FATHER.

Often times we are admonished to forget every negative thing that happened in our past in order to move on or to forgive.
But the Bible doesn't teach us to forget it teaches us to forgive.

Don't forget, just don't allow the memories or what used to be hinder you, learn how to use every trial to your advantage.

You can take painful experiences and use them as lessons of what not to do.
You can allow God to take all discouragement and set you where He would have you to be.

When we trust God by casting our cares and taking His yoke for the yoke of the world, we can remember without it making us bitter but better.

It becomes possible to forgive, releasing all anger praying for others and their insecurities when you know that you are made of something that hate, lies, pride, slander and fear can't destroy.

Christ in you, Abiding in His perfection.

The Apostle Paul did say,
Brothers I count not myself to have arrived at perfection, but this one thing I do understand, by forgetting those things that are behind and pressing forth to those things which are ahead, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

But Paul wasn't talking about blanking out all the bad things that had happened to him. Paul was determined to no longer remember the things that God had forgiven him of.
He was a persecutor of the cross and in order to press on and do God's Will, he had to forget his own wrong doing as God had forgotten it.

He couldn't dwell on his own past life but he had to step into the new man that Christ gives to put on.

In order for Paul to do this he had to know that there was no condemnation In Christ Jesus.
That there was no condemnation in walking after The Spirit.

So when your heart is set to love as God commanded, you can go on and be victorious for real.

Where would we be if we blanked from our memory the pain and persecution that our Saviour suffered?
The Lords passion and His resurrection is the basis in which we stake our faith.

We would be lost if we allowed that to be buried and forgotten.

Don't ever forget what Christ suffered.

Don't ever forget the Holocaust.

Don't ever forget Slavery or the Civil rights struggle.

Don't ever forget the Civil War or Pearl Harbor.

Don't ever forget 9/11.

Don't ever forget Vietnam.

Because to forget those things is to forget the people who suffered, died and lived.

Don't ever allow unpleasant memories to make you bitter, but use them to help serve your decisions by making better choices.

As I celebrated Dr. Kings birthday yesterday I watched some of the footage where men in the South were opposed to blacks sitting at their downtown lunch counters.

I know some folks are uncomfortable when this is talked about and would rather use another example.

You may believe that all black folks hold a grudge against all white folks so they would just rather forget this.
Or ignorant folks who believe that I need to use this as a race card in order to garner support.

No, I am not a politician or a salesman who need gather support for God's truth.
His Word stands as my support.

We all need to remember those things that happened because as quiet as it's kept the ideas still exist today in the hearts and minds of many.
Nothing puts out a lie like the truth does.

As I watched a documentary of the 60's one Caucasian man in particular stated for the news cameras, " I wasn't raised around them(blacks)and I don't particularly care to sit in a place and have to eat near them."

I wasn't raised around Jewish people, but I do not believe that they should not have the right to pursue what God intended for all men to pursue.
I don't believe that they should be hindered or their property and land taken from them.

I learned that this mans opinion and attitude was not that of all the white folks or even the governing bodies at that time.
Yet because of the fear of not being accepted by others, many kept quiet.

In one southern state there was a governor who believed that no one had the right to tell him what was morally correct.
This man had to have been one of the most pride filled arrogant human beings I had heard speak from that era.

Then the governor of Tennessee was asked by a young black college student, "Do you believe that it is morally right to sell merchandise to black people accepting their money only to turn around and refuse them service at a lunch counter?"

He answered this young black woman truthfully, saying, " No I do not believe that it is morally right to refuse service to a people who we have just sold merchandise to."
This man took a lot of flack for that answer, but he spoke from the core of his belief system that day.

That's what character is.
That was the total quality of that man's personal faith about life, it wasn't apparent by the way he resisted the request of black people to be treated as equal.

His answer didn't reflect what he was raised around, because he was raised around segregation.
His answer reflected his true moral character.

He was given no alternative with that question but to face the truth of what he really believed, and the young woman asking him the question respected his stance and answer.

I remember these things on purpose because they serve as tools and lessons.

In taking the time to remember and reflect on Dr. Kings life and the non violent movement that he headed up it's taught me how like Jesus did to take blows and still respond with dignity and faith.

We have to know and remember our own American and World history as we should know Bible history or we will in ignorance suffer the same misfortunes over and over again.

We can't omit or add to either.

This knowledge helps us to stop going around the same mountain of fear, greed and materialism that crushes the innocent and increases the number of souls lost.

Denying people the opportunity to come to Christ or to live with dignity.

As Christians we have to place responsibilities and limits upon our selves unlike the governing bodies in that era who refused to do this, and because they would not the National Guard was sent in to bring order.

If we don't do it, The Lord will send order.

We are no good being men or women of action without these qualities and this character.

It is Christ in us.
The content of our character is the fruit of God in us.
Greater is He in me than he that is in the world.

Never forget.

1 Corinthians 11:24-26
Think About It.

LOVE Y'ALL :)