Take Care Lest You Forget

This morning at Grace, Matt Williams preached on the conversation between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7. In speaking about how she was desperate for Jesus because she knew she was empty on her own, he asked, “When everything is going our way, are we still desperate for Jesus, or are we full on our own?”

He then said, “Wherever our strengths lie, we must release that so that it doesn’t become and idol.”

It reminded me of the passage in Deuteronomy 8, where Moses is imploring the Israelites to remember God and all He has provided.

"Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.” – Deuteronomy 8.11-20

So how do we take care to not forget? Moses gives us that answer, as well:

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. – Deuteronomy 6.5-7

And Paul also reminds us that nothing good comes from us:

“For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!...For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. – Romans 7.18,24-25, 8.3-4

All things in my call for my rejection, All things in You plead my acceptance

Praise be to God!

- Picture from provindents.com