Thought for Today
Leviticus 5:12 You shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall scoop up a handful of it as its memorial portion, and turn this into smoke on the altar, with the offerings by fire to the LORD; it is a sin offering.
Psalm 38:1 <A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.> O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath.
Acts 10:3 One afternoon at about three o'clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, "Cornelius." 4 He stared at him in terror and said, "What is it, Lord?" He answered, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.
“We’re living monuments of God’s enduring testimony.” (These Days, September 12, 2026)
I don’t often think of myself as a monument . . . although, when my weight is up I might sometimes resemble one. My computer’s word processor suggests as synonyms for monument: memorial or shrine. I don’t find either suggestion any more palatable when applied to myself. To begin with, I always think of monuments, memorials and/or shrines as reminders of things past. My children and grandchildren might apply those terms to my ideas and actions, after all, when I text, I use capitalization and punctuation.
That devotional above is from a Christian publisher and is intended for use by Christians. Are Christians merely remnants of the past? Some of us are old enough to remember that motto from the past, “Never trust anyone over thirty!” I am over thirty. Does my age qualify me to be a memorial? A shrine to an almost forgotten past? Is 30 years of age the magical pivot point from relevancy to irrelevancy?
I cannot imagine there could possibly be anyone in the U.S.A. who was not reminded yesterday about the tragedy of September 11, 2001. “’We now have 100 million Americans who are too young to remember 9/11 — they were born since then or were quite young at the time,’ . . . As of 2023, 27% of Americans were born after 2001.” (www.nj.com)
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense, George Santayana)
Are the lessons we learn from the past relevant to our future? Should we retain those lessons and keep them relevant to our future? Are all the lessons we learn from the past relevant to our future? In order, Yes! Yes! Maybe?
As an American, how do I determine which lessons to remember? How do I categorize and retain them? Do I really care about lessons learned about how to drive a horse-drawn carriage? How about lessons on how to crank a Model A? No, I do not remember how to hand-crank any car . . .but I have seen pictures.
I have read that resistance to change is directly proportional to age. I am old enough to have some appreciation for that allegation. But, I also remember Santayana’s words about remembering the past. I do understand that all progress requires change. I also understand that all change is not progress.
As a Christian, especially as a Christian minister, much of my life is focused on the past and the lessons we learn from the past. The Bible is itself a memorial to the past, a monument from our ancestors-in-the-faith. It is a shrine to our Creator God’s covenant faithfulness. Christians today, throughout all Christendom, are living monuments of God’s enduring testimony. But, only to the degree that we apply the lessons from our faith history. Only to the degree that the lives we live are faithful to our faith history. “James 2:18 But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” May it ever be so.
Remember, endure through lives of faith, trust God,
Pastor Ray